Sora and the World of Zootopia
by Iscreamer1
Summary: Sora, Donald and Goofy travel to a world where anthropomorphic animals thrive as civilized beings called Zootopia. There they meet police bunny Judy Hopps, who enlists the help of con-man Nick Wilde to solve a mystery. Also includes elements and characters from Darkwing Duck, Talespin and Bonkers.
1. Welcome to Zootopia

Fourteen year old Sora lived on the white sandy beaches of the great Destiny Islands with Riku, who was his rival and Kairi, who was his girlfriend. All three were great friends; they played on the island in the mornings, in the noon they did sword fights (with wooden ones of course) and in the sunset they would sit by the old paopu tree and discuss about visiting other places, hoping that one day, they would be lifted out of their grey existence on that small island with nothing in front of them but an ocean.

One night, while preparing a raft that would take them out to sea, a dark hurricane whirled the island to smithereens before consuming it entirely and scattering its inhabitants in different locations. Sora felt as if he were going up in a balloon until he landed with a soft crash in the alleyway of a sunless Victorian village called Traverse Town. There he met a wizard of a duck named Donald Duck and a funny dog in shining armor called Goofy Goof, whom like Sora, were searching for their master King Mickey Mouse, the ruling sovereign of a kingdom called Disney Town who had disappeared while negotiating the affairs of several stars that blinked out in a Zodiac pattern. Having also gained the experience of the Keyblade, a legendary weapon that could seal and unlock the core of worlds, Sora decided to tag along; hoping that the duck and dog would take him to Riku and Kairi.

Ignoring the negative traits of his newfound friends and the threats of his newly formed enemies that controlled the mysterious beings of dark and shadow known as the "Heartless", Sora had taken off a two-year adventure; travelling to many planet-like worlds and a fortress of white and silver in hopes that those who lived there had seen Riku, Kairi or the little mouse king. Piece-by-piece, Sora found out that he was a religious savior and a balance to restore the universe needed to save those who were related to him in spirit, blood and kinship.

Across the galaxy, travelling amongst a great war between 7 brightnesses and 13 darknesses, Sora, the King, his discovered family and new friends fought bravely against the forces of the wicked sorceress Maleficent and the corrupted elder Master Xehanort, who wanted to use Kingdom Hearts, the universe's epicenter, to reshape the worlds in his own image and rule over them like a god. With the combined strength of the seven lights, Sora finally gave Master Xehanort his just reward, putting an end to the insane man and creating a new life of a less strict enforcement in the universe.

With no Heartless, no Nobodies, no Unversed or any Dream Eaters to derail them, Sora was happy to have retired in a universe at peace. But one could only imagine that he still liked to visit other worlds with Goofy and Donald for both business and pleasurable purposes a decade later. Now twenty-six years old, Sora and his two sidekicks travelled to another set of unexplored worlds, sharing the history of the Keyblade, the schematics of the worlds they had previously encountered and the story of how they came to be.

Not long after their trip to San Fransokyo had ended, Donald wanted to see his relatives in Duckburg. A duck themed city located somewhere in between the great metropolis of St. Canard and the coastal town of Cape Suzette where his more closer relatives; Uncle Scrooge, sister Dumbella and nephews Huey, Dewey and Louie, resided in a home away from Disney Town. In fact, Duckburg and Mouseburg were the birth places of Donald's and King Mickey's family before Disney Town had been established in 1928. Setting the coordinates into the Gummi Ship's computer himself, Donald took a deep breath as he opened the throttle and the rocket zoomed away into the furthest reaches of space.

Way up in the Lepus Quadrant in the constellation of Leo the Lion, lay the city of Zootopia, the home of advanced animals alike. Ask any Zootopian and they would have this to say, "Anyone can be anything!" One building looked like a giraffe, every lamppost was dressed like a pelican and the citizens marched through the streets planted with tropical trees that filled the city with fresh clean air, the kind of oxygen that you could only find in the African hinterland. The Meadowlands were home to sheep and Outback Island was a pleasant home for Australians and every place in Little Rodentia was a fast food restaurant chain called Chez Cheez where the tiniest of mice liked to eat cheese. But every Zootopian knew, that in comparison to some of the more "overrated human worlds" outside their borders, there was prejudice everywhere…without a single doubt. On the lighter side of matters, Zootopia had a section for every season: Summer in Sahara Square, fall in the Rainforest District, winter in Tundra Town and spring in the Burrows, the perfect home for the rabbits to live and prosper in the peaceful hills of forty-two apartments that were shaped like domes.

When they arrived, Sora immediately took a disguise, as he had done once before in previous worlds. At the docks where the Gummi Ship had landed, it was Donald who waved his mage's staff in his right hand and gave Sora's complexion the appearance of a cougar with fur that matched his hazelnut hair. It reminded him of his visit to the Pride Lands in the African Savannah, where he was a lion cub, a feral lion cub that directly contrasted with the anthropomorphic animals that thrived in the place of humanity in all shapes and sizes.

"Does this seem a bit much to you?" Sora asked Donald after a two second peruse of doubt.

"This is what Zootopia is all about," Donald spoke with uncharacteristically refined pride in his quacky voice.

"It doesn't matter who you really are," Goofy added in a rare moment of intelligence. "But in your case, you've just gotta fit in."

"I only hope I'll be able to like this place just as much as you guys," Sora nodded sheepishly.

"You bet it will!" Donald quacked. "Now come on, let's go see my family!"

And off they went.

On their way, the trio came upon a variety of animals whose god was Noah, the only human Zootopians ever looked up to in terms of religious beliefs with name of Enoch as an exclamatory remark. There was fox of half-masted eyes and a slick smile that shined his livid yellow-green shirt and navy blue necktie with red pinstripes horizontally going down to the bottom. His tan khakis were the only dull colors on his person, but his emerald green eyes were locked on Sora's crown pendant before his eyes met the fox's. It looked as though he was aroused by something and he wanted to caress it very badly in his greedy hands of lust.

* * *

Yes, every mammal, carnivore, rodent, felidae, bird and marsupial liked Zootopia a lot. But Drake Mallard, who lived in a suburban house just north of St. Canard, had an entirely different point of view.

Drake Mallard reviled the crime and corruption that dared to strike the very heart of his city with brute force, for he was in actuality, the super hero Darkwing Duck, protector of the innocent and masked crusader bent on dispelling the criminal elements of St. Canard and its neighboring cities in Zootopia. Nobody knew how or when he came to be this masked defender. It could be perhaps, that his parents were murdered right in front of him during a robbery when he was eight years old. It could be perhaps that also in his youth, he was a Junior Woodchuck who dreamed of becoming a superhero from a myriad of comic books. But he thought that the most likely reason of all may have been that he came from another planet…a doomed planet that granted him super-powers under the atmosphere of a yellow sun.

In actuality, it was his ward Gosalyn Waddlemeyer who was orphaned by a gang of lowlifes working for the nefarious Taurus Bulba during a robbery. She herself was the granddaughter of Professor Waddlemeyer, who had been building a secret weapon, a dangerous weapon called the Waddlemeyer Ramrod that disrupted gravitational bonds and made people float. He too was beaten to death at the hands of Bulba's gang, each one taking their turn by name, Hammerhead Hannigan the goat, Hoof the donkey, Mouth the ram, his female secretary Clovis the cow and Tantalus the condor. They believed that Gosalyn bore the information of the arming code, so they tried to shanghai her—but not before Darkwing Duck got to them first in his motorcycle, the Ratcatcher. He took her to his hideaway in the south tower of the Audubon Bay Bridge, where he revealed the information about her grandfather and questioned her as to why Taurus needed the Ramrod. After a quick summary of explanations and the fact that Darkwing had a library of information on the citizens of Zootopia, alive or deceased, he agreed to let Gosalyn stay in his tower, worried that she would reveal his secret identity to the world. Subsequently, Taurus' plans were dashed and Gosalyn was legally adopted by Drake Mallard.

Since that faithful day, Gosalyn wanted to become a hero. Her tomboyish nature created the alter ego of Quiverwing Quack, Gosmoduck and Crimson Quackette, three very different superheroines with one thing in common: to help her adoptive father. But Drake grew too close to Gosalyn and the last thing he ever wanted was to see his adoptive daughter getting killed or injured. But Gosalyn did not want to just be sidekick, she also wanted to be a hero in her own right and even after the first anniversary of her adoption date, she was still fit to burst with beating the living shit out of Darkwing's enemies. She later befriended Honker Muddlefoot, a shy and intelligent goose with myopia who wore red rimmed spectacles and a pine green polyester shirt. He often carried a backpack for the secondary purpose of gadgets and literal references in supporting Gosalyn's missions with Darkwing.

* * *

Sora, Donald and Goofy arrived late at sunset (about 5:59 PM to be exact), giving Darkwing Duck the perfect opportunity to strike back at Taurus Bulba's new headquarters, the One Chump Plaza Casino, where an anecdotes of dog racing scams took place without proper authorization of legalized gambling. One of the former racers, a greyhound who knew too much, tipped Darkwing off about the new manager. Darkwing was confused at first, as Taurus' injuries from the Ramrod being blown up during their last battle had put him out of action for eight months, but knew that the time for healing was over and flew over to the casino by roping himself to the right skid of a police helicopter. He could even see the bull in a blood red waistcoat as he squinted his eyes into the top office window, ready to swing with every momentum of the pendulum in his body to crash his way though.

Taurus Bulba was indeed a fierce bull, and this evening his thoughts on Darkwing Duck and his ninety nine year prison sentence was far in the back of his horns. Although being incarcerated in the city pen was a minor inconvenience (having used his own cell as a base of operations), he was comfortable in whatever suited his needs, like the sleek office on the top floor of One Chump Plaza Casino with its prune colored marble. He had already broken his gang out of jail using a power-drill to mine his way through the sewer system that connected to the washing facilities of the penitentiary where he also recovered their suits (and some more of his own) and they sat by the table with Taurus himself in the director's chair.

"For a year, I had considered using this casino as a front for my operations and now today is that day," Taurus swallowed his lungs in the event of a long-winded speech. "My business with the prior applicant, Diamond had been stodgy, but I managed to acquire half the building under a contract signed by him so that he could retire for the next month or so."

Every member of Taurus' gang exchanged discomforting expressions, they could not tell if the boss was using euphemisms to imply that he killed Diamond, a goat of some sort and a member of the Suits, a criminal gang led by the masked tabby cat Pokerface who specialized in gambling.

"The products of this casino..." Taurus stopped for a beat. "...and our time of planning has just about paid off."

From the bottom of the table was a metallic briefcase. He picked it up in his left hand, turned it to face him and opened the two latches that held the luggage down, revealing a total amount of $50,000 in cash.

"Feel free to take a look," said Taurus, turning the briefcase counterclockwise towards his stooges.

Hammerhead Hannigan took three thousand dollar bills into his hooves, gazing at them for over five seconds. Unsure of it's authenticity, he handed them to Clovis, whose eyes were sharper than any normal secretary who had the experience of looking out for counterfeit dollar bills.

"It's appears to be legal," she said quickly. "But I do not see the difference."

Hoof and Mouth, the less intelligent members of the gang on a comedic scale, were denied any chance of glancing at the tender when Clovis handed the money back to Taurus.

"You need a microscope to tell the difference between what is real or not," Taurus stated, putting the bills back into the briefcase. "Which is something that neither of those retards in blue could figure out. In layman's terms; yes it is counterfeit, but is identical to the real McCoy right down to the hairs on the portrait. In this way, we can get the real money from the machines while those who win get the counterfeit as punishment for their greed and avarice that comes to me and me only."

He punctuated the word "me" by putting his right thumb at his chest. If things went according to plan, Taurus would have most of the real money from visiting gamblers on himself and his gang, before distributing it to the black market and the rest of St. Canard's criminal network.

"And now..." the bull began to finish. "I expect a quarter mile of this dough by October. But before we can commerce, does any one else have any suggestions?"

Hoof raised his right hoof nervously, fearing that Taurus would be infuriated with his answer, weather it be about Darkwing Duck or some idiotic question regarding the money.

"One thing, boss. Why give the counterfeit money to the winners, like if they win the jackpot or something? Wouldn't it get us in deep shit if the cops start nosing around if someone reports about the fake money?"

Taurus glared, but his emotions were stable.

"It's for the other criminals, dumbass. Were you not listening the first time when I said I wanted to make peace with my rivals?"

"I think he only got half of that," Mouth uttered, hoping it would sedate his boss back into a content mood.

But Taurus was unwilling to go into further detail, for it was his pet condor Tantalus that sensed danger by craning his head towards the right side window. From the rope on the helicopter was Darkwing Duck who made a clashing type of entrance by ramming his body into Mouth's, causing the ram to fall head first and Darkwing himself to stand on the table with his cape flapping from the wind created by the retreating helicopter. He struck the dramatic poise of his dark bluish-purple Kevlar cape covering the majority of his suit: a light purple trench coat with four gold buttons and a turquoise scarf that looked almost rumpled. His black floppy hat and light mauve mask seemed as dramatic as one of own entry lines.

"I am the bulldozer that bulldozes illegal establishments!"

He threw a left backhand at the sneaky Hammerhead coming from behind.

"I have the senses of a ninja and a bat combined!"

He trusted a left jab at Hoof before he could take action, leaving Taurus, Tantalus and Clovis by themselves. Taurus ran for the door with the briefcase in his left hand, while Darkwing's arms scooped Clovis into the classical romantic position that seemed to equilibrate with his campy tone.

"I am the Cassanova who rescues innocent women from their diabolical male employers!"

But Clovis did not take this as personal remark. Her face scrunched into an affronted mug of vexation with the fact that her loyalty, as a professional female, remained true to Taurus Bulba, so she threw her right knee at Darkwing's chest and slapped the left side of his beak with her right hand before hammering his head with her purse and ran off to join Taurus.

"With some exceptions."

Darkwing fell to the floor face first as he said this, giving him a speedy three seconds of recovery before Tantalus swooped down upon him and his hands gripped on his wings.

"I...am...Darkwing Duck!"

He climaxed the last four words by finding the inner strength that came deep from beneath his biceps, cracking the joints that held the humerus bones in the wings together that sparked a sharp pain to Tantalus' body. It surged into his throat and caused him to scream bloody murder with a loud "CAWWWKKK!"

After the bird collapsed from his broken wings, Darkwing dusted himself off with the intent on hunting Taurus and Clovis down.

 _If I were a bull, where would I hide._

He looked left and right as he thought to himself before his eyes focused on the door leading to the antechamber of the office. In front of it were three elevators, and Darkwing concluded that Taurus and Clovis had taken one of them. Unsure as to which one, he made his own way down via the emergency stairs. Twenty six flights of stairs seemed like a task for Darkwing's speed, but not unless he decided to take the faster way by sliding down the bannister.

By the time he got there, Taurus and Clovis were making their way to their car, and just as Taurus' right hoof had made contact with the door to the driver's seat, he felt a tinge of moist coming towards his tail which into smoke. Turning around, his immediate assumption was Darkwing Duck who disappeared from view and was replaced by a flock of bats screeching their way through Clovis' hair. She screamed as two of them tried to sink their fangs into both of her ears, one bat on the left the second one on the right. Overwhelmed by this, she ran forth towards the exit and out into the street.

At the sound of a throaty voice, the bull looked over his right shoulder.

"Tell me, Taurus Bulba, do you ever dance with the angel of death by the pale moonlight?"

The figure stepped out of the clouds to reveal a Dickensian figure of sour green skin, black fingernails and white hair dressed in a top hat and overcoat with a suit made to match the archetypical features of a miser or an undertaker. He slowly stepped towards Taurus, giving goosebumps to his skin as he gazed into the face of true fear. The figure also had a red right eye that was as powerful as blood or a ruby recut into the shape of a spherical ball of lust.

"Who are you?" the bull asked.

"I am Moloculo Macawber, and I want you."

That was all the duck said and he raised his right hand in relation of striking Taurus' head.

"Hey! I am the true master of psychological warfare!"

Darkwing's somewhat unneeded outburst was all Taurus needed to his escape in his car. He turned the key in his right hoof almost immediately after throwing the briefcase in the passenger seat. His eyes were locked onto the duck known as Moloculo as his right foot hit the gas pedal and brought the car to thirty miles per hour. His intentions were directly meant to run the grotesque duck over.

"I've got you now, you son of a b-"

But it was unfortunate for him that Moloculo chose the exact moment to jump, pushing his fists into the windshield and shattering the glass with the strength that contrasted with his thin appearance. Taurus shielded his eyes from the pieces that tried to blind him. The open, crooked green hands aiming for his throat told Taurus that the stranger was trying to choke the life out of him. Quickly, he turned the wheel over to the right, throwing the decrepit duck off the hood.

Smiling to himself in a selfish way, Taurus would have gotten away with it—if it hadn't been for the residential grocery store in front of him on his way out of the lot. Not seeing it until after throwing Moloculo off the car, his left foot slammed on the brakes and the vehicle crashed into the window. Glass exploded and shards skittered across the linoleum, the three animals inside ran to the walls and ducked for cover. Oranges and lemons fell from the stands with six apples plodding their way to the pavement from the slightly loosened framework of the wooden boxes. Pedestrians from nearby came to see what had happened and the owner of the store, a male pig in a cherry-red sweater vest, placed a note of outrage which read "UOM $76!" in a violent cursive on the right windshield wiper of the car.

Taurus wasn't seriously injured, but the whiplash he suffered from the impact had immediately put his neck in a brace as soon he was loaded into an ambulance on a stretcher. The paramedics closed the ambulance doors and all Darkwing could do was watch as it whisked Taurus to the general hospital, then he left with a flap of his cape.

Sora, Donald and Goofy, standing from the left side of the street on the sidewalk, observed the commotion.

"Now there's something new," Sora added out of blue.

Back in the lot, Darkwing turned back at the fleeting Moloculo, who was heading towards the exit on the other side.

 _Could I have a new rival on my hands?_

He rushed over, testing the speed of his own legs as he turned to the corner on the right hand side. There was nothing more than a circulating line of smoke to indicate where Moloculo had disappeared to.

"Nobody steals my thunder and gets away with it," Darkwing muttered. His use of smoke bombs as an escape attempt were a trademark of his that proved useless in the field of teleportation…unless this Moloculo character was indeed a practitioner of dark magic and wizardry.

Now that he was on solid ground without the Ratcatcher, he aimed the grappling gun in his left hand toward the top of the parking lot and flew his way to the top. Sora watched him from below, adding to his previous remark.

"Now _that's_ impressive."

* * *

Several more shots of the grappling gun took him back to his hideout in the Audubon Bay Bridge. Entering through the underwater entrance, up the elevator (which took him about a minute to get all the way to the top) and right in the middle of the room where the Ratcatcher would be parked, he was greeted by the muscular, red haired Launchpad McQuack, his number one fan and sidekick to Darkwing's coalition of allies called the "Justice Ducks".

Launchpad, often seen with maroon goggles, helmet, coat, cream scarf, tan knickerbockers, brown belt and auburn boots, was a well-known aviator who was a very fond friend in Donald Duck's family. He was somewhat dim-witted despite his repertoire of aviation and technical details in engineering and it was because of this that he had a habit of crash-landing his planes in almost every tangible location. But not even his maladroit actions could stop him from becoming the second best pilot in Zootopia after Baloo von Bruinwald XIII of Cape Suzette.

"How was your day, D.W.?" he asked unflappably.

Darkwing removed his hat, placing it on the top of a nearby coat rack.

"Lousy, some guy named Moloculo tried to steal my thunder and now he's put Taurus Bulba in the hospital."

"Well, it's about time!" said the voice of Gosalyn from nearby. "That bastard deserved a lot more pain that what he got the last time we faced him."

Gosalyn was looking on her laptop for a list of melee attacks and movements, defense mechanisms that would prove useful to her in future missions with the Justice Ducks.

"What's she doing here at this hour?" Darkwing asked Launchpad, aiming his left thumb at her.

"She told me she wanted to have dinner in the tower as part of the anniversary when you adopted her," the pilot explained.

Darkwing shook his head and went over to his daughter.

"No, thanks, I just picked up a tomato sandwich on my way to the casino."

He sat down on the purple couch next to Gosalyn, watching the training video of two hogs practicing the basic combos that ended with some hilarious results. The hog on the left tried to perform the _hakdari seogi_ stance and his right leg which was hanging above the ground struck his opponent in the groin and sent him flying into the air by two feet. This was followed by an outtake of the hog on the right sideswiping his left leg under the foot of his opponent, who did not dare try to move until it was too late. Darkwing had little concern for taekwondo, especially in his field of self-defense like his gadgets or the simple clouts of a heavyweight champion.

"That's a bunch of rot compared to my moves," Darkwing boasted.

But at times, there were some moments where his adoptive daughter acted as the voice of reason for his conscience.

"You might learn it sometime later in life," was all she said.

But his reply was blunt.

"By then, I'll probably be retired."

He was silent for three seconds before another thought crossed his mind.

"By the way, I did your laundry."

"Thanks, Dad."

Gosalyn's eyes were still locked on the laptop, trying to concentrate the movements of the stances without so much as a dare of trying to do itself. She wanted the video engraved in her head before trying it herself.

"If you like karate so much, Gosalyn," Darkwing went on. "Why not I hire you a tutor?"

"You and Launchpad are all the tutors I need," Gosalyn replied.

Darkwing smiled and settled down at his table, removing his mask to resume the identity of Drake Mallard once more. As much as he wanted a bigger dinner, his mind was focused on the mystic who tried to kill Taurus Bulba and got away with the attempt. Perhaps tomorrow would prove better results.


	2. Bunny Beginner

The wheels of the Zootopia Express had been moving steadily for several minutes before Judy Hopps saw the rainforest district pass her by in the observation car. She was about four feet tall with violet eyes and a plucky type of personality. At the same time, she wore a grey Tech Lite shirt with a puce colored section at the bottom and black shorts. An iPad placed in her right rear pocket with earbuds plugged to her large ears of advanced hearing quietly blasted the feminine vocals of "Try Everything", a song about positive experiences and never giving up if nobody ever tried anything.

She seemed pretty excited throughout the hour that passed, watching the large parrots, hornbills, toucans and raptors glide their way in the bright colors of red, green, blue and a large area of yellow mixed into their feathers. The armada swept their way above the window roof, chasing the train and gliding downwards towards the river where the rails ran over the bridge, going under it and heading upwards towards the treetops. Everything that had transpired so far seemed like the happiest part of a new chapter in her life.

The sad part had come in the morning when she left her family behind in Bunnyburrow.

She had been standing in the family living room with her suitcase when the family patriarch, Stu Hopps, came in with a bundle of money and put them down on the kitchen table. Ten one hundreds and three hundred fifty dollar bills added up to one thousand and four hundred dollars. Stu had been fanning them casually, announcing that he was buying an apartment for his first-born daughter (who else?) in Zootopia. Her mother, Bonnie Hopps remained calm and casual as she went through the dishes and glasses that needed to be cleaned. But after Stu sat down on the couch to watch television, Bonnie finished the dishes and placed the money very tediously in a brown envelope, sealing the flap before she handed it to Judy.

"Here, your father says you'll need it…what's the matter Judy? Are you worried? I know everybody is on their first day."

"Maybe I am," Judy said at last. "But I was going to ask if I left now instead of tomorrow. I'm all caught up with my packing and I'm not going to start work until Monday. Maybe it will give me some extra time to learn more about the city before my first day on the job. As for the money, I really don't need this much, especially if it's to pay the rent. Why not I have ten percent and leave you with the rest?"

Bonnie smiled at her daughter. She and Stu were in good standing. Ten percent of one thousand and four hundred dollars was one hundred and forty dollars. With that amount of extra money shared between herself, her husband and Judy's two hundred and seventy-five brothers and sisters, they could buy an extra amount of carrots, blueberries and other mixed vegetables before the fall.

"Of course, dear. You want me to walk you to the train station?"

"No thanks, I can manage. I am old enough to take care of myself after all."

"That's the ticket."

Her mother smiled and threw her arms around her daughter in a quick hug that seemed to have absorbed an hour, but was actually thirty seconds.

"Call me when you get there," she whispered.

Her daughter nodded, looking out at her father coming out from the living room with his arms open for a hug of his own. But Judy had smiled at them very sweetly, then walked out of the house and out of their lives. Inadvertently taking the one thousand and four hundred dollars with her.

Some rabbits never got that kind of opportunity every day in their lives. In fact, when they come right down to it, some rabbits never seemed to get any opportunities at all.

Judy Hopps had waited over twenty-four years for hers.

The opportunity to go on to college came late at seventeen, when Stu was struck in the crown by a home run ball during the ninth and final inning of a baseball game, causing him to gain momentary amnesia from the blow that damaged his brain. While her father recovered (and regained all his memories), Judy helped to support Bonnie and her siblings during her spare time.

The opportunity to find a boyfriend came way too early at thirteen when Dennis Hopper, a classmate at her school Woodlands Elementary, found her extremely attractive to the point of an unhealthy obsession that ended when his father was called to leave in the navy, taking Dennis with him in order to improve (and sedate) his feelings towards Judy. First he was stationed in Cape Suzette and before long, he was working in the theater group. When his first show, _Bye Bye Birdie_ became a major hit, Judy didn't care anymore and she resumed her calamitous life.

* * *

Her ambitions actually began at the annual Carrot Day Talent Show, a small yet colorful festival with over forty-seven stands when she was no more than nine. A stage production, penned by her school's drama teacher, had her in the fittingly authentic role of a tiny innocent rabbit lost in the wild. She could envision the picture in her head as she acted the role of the innocent bunny very accurately, or as accurate as her ingenuous mind could handle.

The rabbit was alone within a jungle of tropical creepers, lowering herself down from the last three feet of black-brown earth towards a clearing and using her ears to push away the lower branches until she came to an oak tree with some rot bark mushrooms on its left side. Judy narrated the story.

"Fear…treachery…vice…corruption…bloodlust. Millions of years ago, these were the forces that dominated our world where prey lived in fear of predators…"

She could see the tiger hiding behind her, his pupils dilating on his target and filling in the blood of his eyes…angry eyes that saw nothing but a crimson vision of destruction. The bunny found a little pool of water and took at least three sips before a _roar_ filled her ears…

"And predators…had an uncontrollable biological urge to mane…"

Judy's classmate, Tobias the jaguar, wore a tiger costume that was brighter than his fur, as public nudity was just about as taboo in this world of animals as it was in human worlds. He "attacked" her with his cute little growl and arms raised up as if about to come down upon her and scathing her costume with his claws. Screaming melodramatically, she pulled out a ten-foot length of red silk that fell to the floor in a lovely grace of slow sweeps as Tobias and the audience watched with morbidity in their eyes. Their ears could hardly escape the cries of:

"BLOOD! BLOOD! _BLOOD!_ "

Coughing up a storm, Judy fell on her back, spontaneously losing blood and squirted two quarts, then three, followed by a two second fountain that stained her "nude" costume. She lay there, tongue slacked under her left eye and eyes wide open with pupils suffering from postmortem mydriasis, but not before she spoke her last words in the most Shakespearian way of a character's final breaths.

"…and… _death!_ "

Stu dropped his jaw and widened his eyes, losing the strength of his right hand holding the camera and causing it to tilt downwards in a thirty-degree angle, inadvertently filming his own legs and his feet before he recovered. Bonnie could only hide her shame with her left hand, her advice to Judy to prevent the play from becoming a graphically violent splatterpunk piece, failed in disgrace. Judy's siblings were far from maudlin, they did not mind the blood since she using her right armpit to squirt ketchup from a cleverly disguised bottle that was stout with a thin lid used to eject the substance.

Bobby Catmull, the cougar who wore a brown shirt with grey pants, played his drums to the beating of the jungle where the story was told. The notes were a dramatic cue that seemed appropriate for a funeral in a children's production.

"Back then," Judy resumed, standing with of her right fingers up. "The world was divided in two. Vicious predator."

Tobias hissed as best as he could, trying not to sound like his own childish self. Then Judy made a ballerina like-stance with her hands and legs together as she finished.

"And meek prey."

Two brown boxes came down upon them. The first one on the right labelled "Vicious Predator" in blood red covered Tobias, while the one on the left, labelled "Meek Prey" in ocean blue hid Judy from plain sight while she dragged the fabric blood into the box with her. Bobby used his drums on the piano for a more innovative way, then a black sheep named Sharla wearing a white one-piece dress and a rainbow headdress with three stars and six cotton balls on each side representing a cloud, tittered her way over to the boxes. Backing three steps in-between, she spilled paper hearts of red and pink from her left, then her right and finally made her way behind the boxes as Judy spoke again.

"But over time, we evolved….and moved beyond our primitive ways."

Sharla bowed down and cuing the stage crew to lift the boxes, lifted her arms up as a signal. Her eyes were looking up as well, making sure that the crew knew what they were doing. When the boxes were lifted Judy and Tobias were dressed like angels (a white one-piece dress to be precise), representing their pure state of mind.

"And now, predator and prey live in harmony."

She offered her right hand to Tobias' left and the young jaguar reluctantly accepted the favor in silence. They were both holding hands together and a flush of embarrassment seemed to take over Tobias as he looked over the crowd for his parents, knowing well enough that was just too young to experience love. The innuendo was climaxed by Sharla blowing a green trumpet that blew a note of streamers in red, green, blue, yellow, purple and pink above their heads. Judy released her hands from Tobias, who took five steps away from her and Sharla stood calm and posture like the soldier's representation of an angel. Lifting her right index finger towards the ceiling, Judy resumed.

"And every young mammal has multitudinous opportunities."

With her hands behind her back, Sharla blurted her lines without any nervousness, yet her voice seemed to lack emotion.

"Yeah, I do not have to cower in a herd anymore."

To prove this, her right hand removed the headdress while her left removed the silk costume, revealing a makeshift astronaut outfit with two red arrows going up and down and the word "Zoo" on the chest plate.

"Instead," she continued, lifting her helmet. "I can be an astronaut!"

Bobby used his whistle with a slider for a more eerie effect, rather than the "spacy" nature of outer space.

"I don't have to be a lonely hunter anymore" Tobias announced before pausing to remove the silk. "Today, I can hunt for tax exemptions. I'm gonna be—an actuary!"

He held a gold pen in his right hand as Bobby played a four note theme of triumph symbolizing success in the world of finance.

"And," Judy climaxed, holding her right hand on her heart. "I can make the world, a better, safer place. I am going to be—!"

Bobby's right index finger pressed the play button on the CD/cassette player, letting out the archetypical action movie theme that seemed to match with either James Bond or Phillip Marlowe. When she threw off her costume, it revealed a navy blue shirt with a black belt and pants made to match. Last but not least were two gold badges: one on her left side, one on a cap that she placed rightfully on her head as she announced her future dream job.

"A police officer!"

Judy's brothers and sisters clapped dutifully, but her parents were filled with regret. Their eyes met each other, nervous and almost as fearful as the fear mentioned in Judy's monologue. They seemed to worry about the consequences of being a police officer, reminiscing on the circumstances of what led her to become this type of person.

Inspired by her idol Bonkers D. Bobcat, a washed up comedian turned cop, Judy wanted to seek justice within her social circle as a rabbit who had been conned and tormented by the hillbilly of a persecutor Gideon Grey. Grey was a tough fox who spoke with low registers and came from a very prejudiced family who looked down upon the prey; his father's side was alcoholic while his mother's saw the working class as object of derision and bigotry. Physically, he was a rather plump sort of fellow with red fur, large ears, cream muzzle, dark purple nose, auburn hair and blue eyes. He also wore azure overalls to accommodate his grandparents' background in the field of husbandry, specifically farming crops.

Sure enough, he was attending the play in a front row seat with his fellow flunky, Travis, a scraggly brown ferret with a white tank top and red shorts that looked like they just came out of the gym. He was scarfing down his peanuts while Gideon, sitting on his right hand side, laughed obnoxiously.

"Bunny cop? Tat is de most retardad thig I's ever heard!"

Judy took on a defensive tone with a hint of snark in her voice.

"It may seem impossible to small minds like _you_ Gideon Grey, but two hundred and eleven miles away stands the great city of Zootopia."

She waved her right hand in the hump of a rainbow as the background shifted from a jungle to a picturesque city of neon colors with the word "Zootopia" in the middle of it and each letter was drawn in a separate color: red for "Z", orange for "O", green for another "O", blue for "T", purple for another "O", blue for "P", yellow for "I", green for "A" and an exclamation point in "blue".

"Where our ancestors first joined together in peace," Judy resumed closing her eyes and locking her hands in pray mode. "and declared that—anyone can be anything!"

As she said this, Sharla and Tobias went back and each carried two poles on their side, carrying the banner of the words in brown that Judy had spoken. For his climax, Bobby used his electronic Catsio piano for the final three notes, beaming at the crew, the cast, his parents, the audience and himself for his future of becoming a musician. Bonnie clapped slowly, while Stu with his hands full, stopped the camera to gaze at his wife, not hearing Judy's cry of:

"Thank you and good night!"

Contrary to her "good night", it was past twelve in the middle of broad daylight when she came out of that barn, skipping merrily in-between her parents, Stu holding her right and Bonnie holding her left.

"Judy, have you ever wondered how me and your mother got married?"

"Nope!" the little bunny replied in the most childishly upbeat voice.

"Well, we gave up on our dreams and we settled down to have you and all the others. Right, Bonnie?"

Bonnie, whose thoughts were on the green tent selling iceberg cabbages, turned her head back to Stu's eye contact at the sound of his voice.

"Oh, yes, that's right, Stu. We settled hard. I wanted to become a doctor, he was an actor who came from a farming family and we both decided that farming was a better option for us."

Stu looked ahead of his field of vision with pride in his eyes.

"That's the beauty of complacency Judy. If you don't try anything new, you'll never fail."

"I think it's the other way around," Judy said. "I actually like trying new things."

She released herself from the grasps of her parents, tediously balancing on a forty-inch-wide barrier of hay. Her mother's face was worried, but she tried to talk sense into her.

"What your father means, dear, is that it is going to be difficult…impossible even for you to become a police officer."

"That's right," her father added. "There's never been a bunny cop."

Judy's hopping started to decrease and Bonnie spoke the final word that stopped her altogether.

"Never."

"Never" was all she said, and Judy, deprived of her energy and motivation, stopped before hope came back to her almost immediately.

"Then I guess I'm gonna have to be the first one."

She jumped off the barrier, bounced her right foot off the right fender of an ice-carrot cart and made a three sixty-degree leap back down to the ground with her arms raised and legs spread apart.

"Because I am going to make the world a better place!"

"We understand, dear," said Stu, arriving at the faded pink stand of carrots with the words "Hopps Family Farm" written in orange. "But what about farming? If you want to make the world a better place, there's no way to do it becoming a carrot farmer."

"Carrot farming is so…simple!" Judy protested. "I've got girl power and bunnies with girl power do more than just serve the public! They fight for their rights."

Hiding her amazement at her daughter's intelligence, Bonnie tried to convince her further.

"Well, your dad, me and all your brothers and sisters are changing the world one carrot at a time."

"Amen to that," Stu added before facing his wife. "Carrot farming is a noble profession."

As her father spoke, Judy, not what some might call a very patient listener, wandered her mind away on other thoughts, turning counterclockwise to a trio of children going in between a blue tent and a light green one with the name "Great Prizes" in an orange-red color against a blue background. Standing by the two Whack a Carrot games were Gideon and Travis, the former's right hand patting Travis as a signal of some sort. Travis looked at Gideon with large eyes that could pop out at any second and she saw his back turned to her, heading in the direction of the earlier three that passed them by, Judy hoped that he wouldn't dare to disturb their peace. So with widened eyes, she took off like lightning before her parents had time to react. Stu was still making eye contact with Bonnie, locked in their conversation about dreams and carrots among other subjects before his head rotated clockwise back to his daughter.

"Just as long as you don't believe in dreams too much, right Judy?"

By the time he turned back to her, he had soon realized that he was speaking to thin air.

"Judy?"

Bonnie could make out a trace of her daughter's cotton tail disappearing behind the blue tent, but with the number of sons and daughters she had brought along with her, about fourteen to be exact, she assumed that the cotton could have belonged to either one of them. Without even bothering to search the crowd, she and Stu went back to their topics.

Judy, however, was peeking her eyes behind the oak tree and placed her hands on the trunk for support, undaunted by the profane, cringing voice of Gideon Grey.

"Given' me your tickets, cunt, or I'll kick your ass!"

He and Travis surrounded the front and rear of Sharla who wore a pink shirt embroidered with a carrot in a thirty-degree angle pointing downwards, as well as light magenta pants. In her right hand were three tickets, each one in a variant color: plum purple, ice green and sky blue. Behind her was her one-year older brother, a white sheep by the name of Gareth with a cap of light buff and dark brown stamped with the insignia of a three leaf clover, a faded turquoise shirt and brown trousers. Hiding behind Gareth appeared to be Lucy, one of Judy's younger sisters, wearing a lemon yellow skirt and rosy red sleeve jacket with a soft blue top.

"Cut it out, Gideon."

That was all Sharla said. But Gideon just snatched the tickets from her with his left hand, stuffing them into his front pocket. He taunted her in the most inhumane way that was beyond his years, things that no innocent child should ever hear. Gideon, tactlessly, was beyond innocent.

"Baa, baa, bitch!"

Judy could have gone to call any of the adults nearby, but it would have likely resulted in Gideon trying to play the nice boy in order to defend his actions or even something else, but the scenarios could wait until she decided to step in and take matters into her own paws. She stomped her way to the burly fox and shouted like a true policewoman.

"You heard her! Stop this _right now!_ "

Travis skittered his way behind the three victims while Gideon just smiled provocatively.

"HA! Nice costume, rabbit-tits."

Then his tone went from sassy to serious. _Dead_ serious.

"Wha' kinda fucked up world are you livin' in where's youse think a rabbit can be some guddamned police cop?"

Judy's face remained stern and she stood her ground even as Gideon took five steps towards her in a threatening size that would have resulted in Judy becoming his next meal.

"Anybody can be a police officer, or as you call them, cops," she demanded, stretching out her left hand. "Now kindly return my friend's tickets or I'll call your parents."

"U can call' em if you wanta," Gideon patted his chest. "I's don't care, now why don't youse come and get 'em? All I's want is a whole lota rides, like the fox I's really 'm. Like youse said in you damn fuckin' stage play, predators yoused to eat prey. Our killer instincts youse to be in all denay."

Travis, being the more intellectual of the two, corrected him on a timid note by leaning towards his right ear.

"Actually, I am pretty sure it's pronounced _D-N-A_."

But Gideon greeted his face with rage, his sharp right fingertips nearly ripping off his shirt of white purity into shreds.

"Don't fuckin' tells me what I's don't know, Travis."

Judy, trying altercate her tone into that of a strong minded female, broke all possibility of an argument between the two as she prepared herself for a petty war.

"You, do not, scare me, Gideon."

"I think I's can fix tat."

His hands grouped her chest and before she could use at least one of her large feet to kick him in the privates, she was shoved hard to earth, knocking her cap away by a meter. Sharla, Gareth and Lucy seized the opportunity to flee before Gideon or Travis could chase after them, taking shelter behind the old oak tree.

Then, Judy looked up. The voices of "Youse scared now?" and "Look her pink little nose twitch" saw the fear creep into her soul. Trying not to cry, she looked away from the fox and thrusted her feet onto both of his nostrils once he was close enough. When it looked like he had seen some drops of blood gushing from his right nostril, Judy tried to flee, but before she could call out for help, she felt her legs being caught by the fox's hands pinning her back to the ground. Gideon was standing above her in an obscene looking position, as if he was ready to rape her.

"Youse jus don't know wen to fuckin' quit, do ya, _bitch_?"

Judy looked up again, and before she could scream the claws in Gideon's right hand had turned into (in her mental imagery) a quartet of stiletto knives, followed by a guttural growl and it was the knifes that a split second later, sliced the hairs off her left cheek and pressed her skin until it drew the red substance of blood. The three closed their eyes, not wishing to see the blood spew from her veins. She could feel the blood just dripping from the four open marks, gasping for the breath taken right out of her lungs until Gideon brought his right hand down on her, his palm covering her injury.

"I's wan ya to 'member this. Nexs time youse tink you can eva' be anythiang, youse be nuttin more than jus some retarded karat farmin' bunny who too stupid to know her place!"

Gideon's left index finger proceeded to claw its way down to Judy's hyoid as he spoke, sparking off three screams of pain as the tip ripped open her veins. Her left arm reached for the tickets when Gideon's pocket lowered closer and closer to her grasp, intent on grabbing them with all the lightning fast-reflexes of the average bunny. With his job satisfied, stopping just above her chest, Gideon turned counterclockwise to Travis and the two friends high-fived each other for breaking a country claude like Judy Hopps of her dreams and wishes for the future. It would not be until an hour later when he found out that the tickets were missing, and by then, Judy would be home free. Her friends and younger sister rushed over, with Sharla calling out.

"Judy, are you okay?"

She looked weak trying support herself with her free right arm.

"I'm fine," she moaned slowly.

As she continued to support herself, she moved the tickets from her left hand to her right, handing them to Sharla.

"I got your tickets back," the strength of her voice had been restored.

Gareth sighed in relief, Lucy cheered quietly "That's my big sis!" and Sharla hugged the tickets, treating them with the tender loving care of a stuffed animal.

"You're awesome, Judy," Gareth added in a triumphant air.

"Bro's right," Sharla added with her voice of valor. "That Gideon Grey doesn't know what he's really talkin' about!"

Judy stood up, lacking the eye contact her friends needed as she marched her way to the fallen cap lying on it's top.

"Well he was right about one thing…"

She picked up her cap with her right hand, placing it on, steadily and carefully into the correct position as it was meant to be worn.

"I do not know when to quit."

* * *

The event had earned Judy an award for the play and a complete hemorrhage from the claw marks that lasted until the next month. When Sharla, Gareth and Lucy brought her back to her parents, Bonnie and Stu overreacted with strong gasps and heavy hugs. Stu, who had known the Grey clan for twelve years since Judy was three, saw to it that neither the fox nor his family would set foot within the front yard of his house to prevent further detriment. But Gideon was too happy to bother, his anger had gotten Judy the pain she deserved out of his own self-defense, which later gave him some hour periods of detention in school and a well-received class of etiquette from his parents once his father had snapped out of a drunken torpor.

Over the next fifteen years, Judy took extra classes and study periods to ensure her place in the semi-rural police academy in Savannah Central where she could accept her place as a proper policewoman without any hindrance from verbal abuse. Her guidance counselor, Francis Zippel, a native polar bear of the cold wintery Tundratown believed that her size stood in a five-zero chance surviving the obstacle course that many trainees had gone through to survive the twelve ecosystems of Zootopia. She had passed Tundratown seven minutes earlier, watching the geysers of snow and floating icebergs that reminded her of the relentless training she went through to reach her goal.

Judy thought about missing the clean environment that had done her good, for it was the country air that bestowed a healthy life upon her maternal grandmother before she passed away in her sleep at the age of a hundred and three while Judy was still in high school. Her parents insisted that she'd stay to support the business of running the farm. Between holding a job at the family vegetable stand and waking up to start her chores at the crack of dawn, there wasn't enough time to socialize with the other rabbits of Bunnyburrow.

It was then that Judy decided that she wanted a chance to do more than live the life of a simple country girl, and enrolling in the Zootopia Police Academy was her only option.

When she arrived by bus the following May, it was cold and damp. The rain that followed in the first five days of her stay created a perfect opportunity for fighting against the forces of nature. The building itself was a neoclassical brick building with four flag posts and some housing behind or on opposite sides of the main façade of the drill hall. In the twenty-eight weeks that passed quickly by, she started in an outdoor gym class consisting of a wolf, a bear, two elephants, a rhino, a hippo, three brown bears, two polar bears and a cheetah, headed by a female polar bear named Fuchsia.

Fuchsia was a drill sergeant with a heart of steel. A tough mouthed bear with the undertones of a saucy afro, she had been in league with the ZPD for almost thirty years right from the day she had been a cadet, just like the ones she was about to teach right now. In the square mile grass field just outside the drill hall, she paced around her cadets in a circle of taciturn braves. True to her words and her black eyes, she did not tolerate any failure and treated it with insouciance, yelling the fatal word of "DEATH!". The direct contrast of the color of her name saw a cold atmosphere that stabbed daggers of fear into the skins of her cadets as they and Judy listened very carefully to her short lecture.

"Listen up! Zootopia has twelve unique ecosystems and three different cities beyond its limits. The twelve are Tundratown, Sahara Square, Rainforest District, Nocturnal District, the Burrows, Canal District, Meadowlands, Little Rodentia, Savannah Central, Mammal Mountain, Outback Island and the Heart. The cities are St. Canard, Cape Suzette and Duckburg. Y'all gonna have to master the art of facing Mother Nature and her forces before you hit the streets."

She stopped in front of them, leaning down to face a concerned Judy wearing a cobalt sleeveless suit with some lighter shades.

"But guess what, without the proper skills…YOU'LL…BE…DEAD!"

Judy's docile intentions soon got the best of her. From five thirty to six p.m., she began with the Sahara Square obstacle, built of three powerful fans mounted in front of a seventy-two-foot box of orange sand. It was called by Fuchsia as the "Scorching Sand Storm" and when she activated the fan next to her, located on the right hand side, the other two in the middle and the left followed three seconds after. The controlled simulation of a sandstorm brought red particles of powder through the cloudy afternoon, sending the cadets on their knees and forcing them to cough from some specks that dangerously entered their lungs. Judy felt as if she were caught in a tornado, too late to find the red cloud heading towards her. The gale was so strong that it practically covered her in a mount, before another blast of wind blew her right off the ground and the upper half of her body found herself, arms raised all the way up, at the very end of the box. She could hear the deranged tone of Fuchsia shouting her in a single reprimand.

"DEAD!"

The other cadets seemed aggressive, yet curious with Judy during the course of her stay, regardless of her size. But Fuchsia had looked at her as nothing more than the runt of the litter, a reckless runt that would be squashed on her first day of school. But Judy was certain that she would not be squashed in what was later called "One Thousand Footfalls" and no sooner did she reach the tenth bar when her right arm had weakened and the weight of her arm pulled her body down along with her left hand which remained strong and true to the very end. Either that or the slippery nature of the rain made it seem impossible for her to continue. She landed face first in the black mud of fatality, hoping that it would clog her ears to prevent herself from hearing the second reprimand from Fuchsia.

"YOU'RE DEAD, CARROTFACE!"

The next morning at seven a.m., after a warm breakfast of carrots and broccoli, Judy and her fellow cadets were pitted against an ice rink that was almost exactly the same length as the sandbox, but instead of three fans, it was faced with an iceberg that looked more like a slide at a children's park in Tundratown, let alone to what Fuchsia referred to it as the "Frigid Ice Wall". When she raced across the ice, getting to the base of the wall, the others were halfway up and she was only about four feet above the ice before her frost-bitten fingernails, unable to hold on any longer, slid her down into the freezing one-degree water made in a single straight line between the wall and the icy rink. Judy shivered when she came to the surface, holding herself and using her chattering teeth to fruitlessly drown out Fuchsia's cry of "YOU'RE DEAD, FARM GIRL!"

That night at ten, she was thrown into a small boxing ring with a rhino named Aron as her opponent. It was a match of size that depended on the "enormous criminal" as described by Fuchsia. Armored with a blue-grey helmet and boxing gloves, Judy charged at Aron before he lowered his head, striking at her with his horn. Judy was not injured by the sharp tip of the horn, but she was thorn back into the corner where she had sprinted from. With the fight having lasted for no more than four small seconds, Fuchsia ended the fight with her own cry of words.

"YOU ARE DEAD!"

Defeated from mud, a car door closed too soon on her right ear and vines representing the Rainforest District, Judy retreated to the bathroom, following Fuchsia on quiet footsteps. Opening the door with her left hand and dismissively closing it with her right, she climbed to the top of the toilet…and her exhausted weight pulled her body into the recycled water. She stayed in long enough, hoping not to hear Fuchsia and her umpteenth cry of:

"YOU'RE DEAD!"

At five in the morning, she was met with Fuchsia, who came to her bunk on plodding footsteps. Judy opened her eyes just in time to find her glare of steel and her voice of mass volume boom into her ears with disheartening words.

"JUST QUIT AND GO HOME, FUZZY BUNNY!"

She sat up at the sound of this, locking her hands together in a prayer and pleading for pity.

"But I need this life!"

Judy was on the verge of tears, and her eyes held genuine sadness. But Fuchsia was completely unmoved.

"Save it for the professionals, Ms. Hopps. Police work is for larger animals. So I order you get your fluffy ass out of this room and get your things, cause you're goin' home!"

Sadly convinced, Judy began searching for her belongings in the locker room and by the time she had packed her suit, Fuchsia and other ranking ZPA officials were having a lovely lunch of mashed potatoes with carrots and applesauce which reminded Judy of her background and the state of farming she had been forced to endure in her early life. She wanted to speak out to them, arguing with whatever excuse or words of wisdom should come up with, but there were none. He fellow cadets fetched her leave from the window until one of the polar bears stayed behind, a curious fellow who watched Judy until she shrunk smaller than the size she truly was.

The cloud-scattered sunrise of gold, pink and blue was picturesque and beautiful when her feet left the last step on the porch to the drill hall, Judy did not look back, having accepted her fate as she made it beyond the gate. Waiting for the homeward bound bus brought Fuchsia's words back into her memory.

" _JUST QUIT AND GO HOME, FUZZY BUNNY!_ "

The voices of her father followed.

"… _never been a cop._ "

Then her mother.

" _Never._ "

This was culminated by the last words Gideon Grey had spoken to her directly on Carrot Days, fifteen years ago.

" _I's wan ya to 'member this. Nexs time youse tink you can eva' be anythiang, youse be nuttin more than jus some retarded karat farmin' bunny who too stupid to know her place!_ "

Reverse-psychology seemed to grip Judy, giving her a change of heart, a change of mind that motivated her energy to become the policewoman that she dreamed of. Without a thought, and confident that the buss would not be arriving today, she made a one hundred and twenty degree run back to the building. Inside the mess hall, she found Fuchsia sitting by the table, having finished her meal. She heard Judy rushing up to her on hurried footsteps, but did not stir, knowing the pitter-patter of those long feet anywhere.

"So you're returned?" she asked with no hint of surprise in her voice.

"Yes," Judy nodded with sweet innocent eyes.

"What made you change your mind?"

Judy's eyes went left towards the back of her head.

"Let's just say it was reverse-psychology."

Without so much as a "welcome back" from throat, Fuchsia had officially let Judy back into the Zootopia Police Academy. Her fellow cadets welcomed her back with a small clap and a rewarding carrot from the kitchen, then she went back to unpacking her things into the locker that was thankfully still empty just as she left it.

It was eleven forty at night when she used the ladder bars of her bed to preform various exorcises, including a one arm shoulder pass, dead lifts, reverse crutch, pushups, leg curls and sit ups by pushing her body with her hands behind her back, all the while reading _8 Weeks to SEALFIT_ for additional reference. The sun had almost risen up to the sky by the time she was finished and her much needed rest only lasted an hour before Fuchsia came in with yells of "RISE AND SHINE! RISE AND SHINE!" that sent the entire faculty on their feet and out of bed. Surprisingly, they seemed exhausted, but Judy felt bright and early, ready to repeat her training.

By seven o'clock, she raced across the ice past a rhino and towards the wall where the hippo, wolf, bear and panther were struggling to climb up, but she used the wolf's head to bounce her way up, followed by the hippo's rubbery crown that catapulted her six feet onto the top. Fuchsia, lifting her cap with her right hand, smiled in amazement and her eyelids went wide at the sight of the impossible becoming a reality.

In the boxing match, she took three steps away from Aron's left hook before sprinting underneath him, gripping the top manila rope and using it to catapult herself onto his right fist, the force of her feet sending a blow that removed his top row of teeth. It was revealed five minutes later that they were dentures, his true teeth having been misshapen from previous matches. As Judy plummeted to the ground, granting a victory cry of "YOU PASSED!" from Fuchsia, a disoriented Aron continued to circulate until after two seconds, he fell with a loud bump that nearly shook the whole ring.

Following the successful rounds of the sandstorm, the monkey bars, the vines, the car, the tire obstacles and even the toilet, Fuchsia had personally rewarded Judy with an honorary degree for exceeding the odds and believing in herself and when she came home, the first thing her parents had done was hug her the very moment she came to the door and the rest of her family held a party that was as grand any upper class citizen could hold in the more wealthier areas of North Americlaw. All she had left to do was to wait for graduation day, which would be held, two weeks from that day at ten a.m. when matters had cooled on the subject of hiring a rabbit for an officer.

* * *

Leodore Lionheart was the 52nd mayor of Zootopia and a distant relative of King Leonidas of the Island of Naboombu. Leonidas had been abdicated from the throne for political reasons, his oppressors believing that a strong government was more proficient than a monarchy. That government soon spread to the mainland that became Zootopia, it's mountains towering over Naboombu along with its extensive area of altercating environs that served as a home to the native mammals. Progress over the course of two thousand years saw the industrial beat of science and business give birth to the class system, computers, the cinema, food processing, high-speed transportation, skyscrapers and many great inventions that became the downtown area in the very heart of Zootopia itself. An urban, civilized world that took the slower, gentler rhythms of Mother Nature into the rural areas like Bunnyburrow, where he stood now before a crowd of three hundred and twenty-four rabbits, giraffe, elephants, pigs, rhinos and almost every species that existed in their world. His phalanx of newly made police officers stood in front of the crowd of white fold-out seats as he released his voice into the microphone attached to the podium for a long winded speech.

"As mayor of Zootopia, I am proud to announce, on this historic occasion, that my mammal inclusion initiative has produced it's very first police academy graduate."

The feline mayor looked stunning in his navy blue suit with a blood red tie and white shirt. His neck was entirely concealed by his mane and his carroty eyes held no thirst for vengeance towards the prey. Lionheart could remember back to the day he took extra classes in a school of politics and global studies, eventually becoming a City Hall councilor before he took over as mayor in the following election between himself and business tycoon Shere Khan of Cape Suzette.

Judy, standing on the left in front of the others, held her cap under her right arm in a proud statue of her puffed chest, chin up in the correct position and feet firm to the earth. She tried to contain her excitement with silence, and she was successful at it, watching Lionheart with full-blown eyelids that did not dare to succumb to fatigue or feebleness. Her tie uniform matched with the others, all trying to look their best for their acceptation into the larger leagues.

"A valedictorian of her class, Zootopia Police Department's very first rabbit officer…Judy Hopps"

Proud, strong and knowing her place in history at the very sound of her name, Judy walked over to the stage, finding herself in front of the very lion who coined the term, "In Zootopia, anyone can be anything." Her brothers and sisters cheered, Stu shed a tear in his left eye as he clapped slowly and his wife eyed him in dismay for his exhibition of immaturity.

"Be strong for her," Bonnie said in a low voice.

Judy came to the stage and stopped at the precise moment that Mayor Lionheart cleared his throat, initially assuming that he was going to address her. But instead, he whispered to the sheep on his left hand side, whose size appeared to be exact length of his lower legs, not counting her puffy hairdo which seemed to resemble a large round tumor or a bell painted white.

"Miss Bellwether, her badge please."

Dawn Bellwether, Lionheart's attaché and assistant mayor was meek and at some times, hyperactive in every way. She wore orange-red rimmed spectacles and had a fluffy layer of hair. For the ceremony, she chose a cadet-grey sweater, a twenty karat gold bracelet on her right arm, a gold pendant and a one-piece dress in dark heliotrope. When she heard Lionheart's polite voice of tame reasoning, Miss Bellweather looked left and right before remembering where he was and rushed over to Judy, carefully pinning the badge of the Zootopia Police Department over her left chest. Miss Bellweather placed her hands back in a position that reminded her of the female that she really was.

"Judy, it is my great pleasure to officially assign you to the heart of Zootopia itself…City Center, Precinct One."

Judy released her excitement with a squeak that sounded like an inaudible "yip". But while her siblings were thrilled, her parents were filled with regret as their hands clapped in a slow rhythm. The 1st Precinct was likely to be filled larger animals and even larger crime rates, enough to get her killed, accidently or intentionally by criminals and by passers with large feet. Bellwether and Judy exchanged girlish, but surprisingly strong smiles and a few coquettish words.

"Congratulations Officer Hopps, I know you will do a splendid job as Zootopia's first rabbit officer."

"I will not let you down," Judy's tone was strong and slow even when she confessed. "It has been my dream since I was nine."

Miss Bellwether leaned her head over her left shoulder five inches closer to Judy's eyes.

"And I consider this to be a very proud day for us…little people."

As though she were one of them, Bellwether did not consider herself as an animal with dwarfism, a short-statured illness that resulted in that animal being half the size of a normal one. But Judy and Miss Bellwether were born just the way they were and how most sheep and rabbits will always be for years to come. But that moment of sympathy was interrupted when Lionheart covered her glasses with his left hand and pushed her back by eight feet, muttering as he did.

"All right, give her some space."

With the hand now resting on her left shoulder, Judy stood with a content expression as the mayor gave her a simple instruction.

"Okay _Officer_ Hopps, let's see those teeth."

A five pack of photographers, a sheep, a cougar, a gazelle, a stallion and a pig clicked away at their cameras. Judy exposed her bare teeth in the biggest grin she could think of. Thomas, the family nerd, thought that she looked like a professional at smiling. Bonnie and Stu thought that Judy like a dangerous criminal she had vowed to remove of with the eyes and smile of a serial killer. Not noticing Miss Bellwether looking in-between the right side of Mayor Lionheart's waist and the cap in her right arm with a worried expression at not getting a photograph of her own, Judy smiled like she had won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in her role as a police officer (that is, if she wanted to become an actress like she had originally intended before learning more about Bonkers).

* * *

At last, the train started to slow down as it came into Zootopia Grand Central Terminal. Judy's initial reaction to the tall buildings and spiraling architecture was just as she had imagined it in her dreams and photographs but with a far greater response to the beauty and wonder of the city and its multi-economical state of nature that caused her ears to flop downwards, trying to contain their excitement. The station exterior seemed to be in a neo-classical style with a faded emerald green paint that was turning turquoise, four twisting horns on each corner and four tracks leading into it from different towns and stops that all ended in Savannah Central.

The train made a smooth stop on platform one and the electronic doors released its passengers into the gorgeous interior of lights and tropical plants with blue and purple lilacs adorning the platform to achieve an environmental experience. Holding her suitcase with both hands, Judy stepped out in-between a rhino in blue on her left and a female zebra in red diamonds on her right, her mouth open and ran quickly out of the way before the couple could take the step out.

Heading towards the elevator for those who preferred to ride over the staircase, Judy was amazed by the marvels of the station's decor and other forms of transportation. Among them a tunneled river for hippos, one of them in a business suit with a light purple striped tie came out dripping wet, the briefcase in his right hand spilling extra amounts from outside as it had proved to be watertight to prevent its contents from ruin. A system of twenty-eight blowers from the floor below him shot hot air that sent the bottom of his jacket flying upwards, but was still attached to his body. He came out looking like he was never wet in the first place when he stepped off the floor.

Cute little hamsters, also dressed in business suits came sliding down in four different tubes of yellow, blue, red and orange, all of them attached with green and red lights allowing each hamster to go, much like a traffic light. Judy watched the procedures taking place in front of her, including two businessmen crashing on top of each other at the exit of the red tube. These tubes provided an obviously faster mode of transportation besides a car, which were only allowed in the streets.

She found a nice juice bar that drew her attention, with a pipe that sent a straw cup of freshly squeezed acacia juice to a college-age giraffe in a purple polyester vest with grey shorts. His girlfriend, wearing a blue jacket with a white shirt and skirt. But now, as she was discerning in her mind, Judy felt that there was little time for a drink. She was too excited to see the world that lay beyond the front entrance where mammals of every shape, size and color came and left in the daily circle of life.

A group of boy scouts, their leader using a megaphone to speak over the din of the station, passed Judy as she cut her way into the open area. She turned around, admiring the scenery rather than the people around, not too careful as to be sure where she was going. She kept her suitcase at bay, preventing herself from getting on unfriendly terms with a disgruntled person who was xenophobic. At last she stopped, smiling, and laid her eyes on a two screen jumbotron presenting the figure of a female gazelle holding her right hand on her hips against a blue background of lighter blue bulbs. On the top screen was her head, which had light brown eyes and wavy blond hair covering her right one. On the bottom screen was her chest, hidden by a pink top with some tiny blue and yellow beads that shined in the lights. Her smile and voice was as warm and welcoming to Judy as she said.

"I'm Gazelle. Welcome to Zootopia."

Judy took three steps back at the famous pop star who was well known all over the city. Taking three steps back, it was too late for her left foot to be stepping on the tail of a black and white panther in some odd looking choice of clothes.

"Oh! Excuse me!"

Judy looked back at the panther, seeing that he had blue eyes and spiky brown hair to match his fur. He was accompanied on his left by sailor suit clad duck, causing Judy to assume he was from the navy.

"Sorry," she apologized. "I'm new here."

"I can see that," said the panther.

After four seconds, he regained his breath.

"Pardon me if I have interrupted you, but my friends and I are looking for a place to stay."

Judy looked up and down at the trio, the panther in brown hair looked odd and the duck and the dog were a rare sight to the mammals of this city, even back home in Bunnyburrow. Some of these ducks and dogs stayed in neighboring cities like Cape Suzette or Saint Canard, perfectly comfortable where they were and not finding too many reasons to leave their hometowns. If they did, some would stare at these animals like they were objects of curiosity and wonder, even if the mammals knew beforehand about these rare types of advanced animals beyond Zootopia's boundaries. It was because of ancient food chains and other studies in segregating advanced non-mammals that they would be safe from foretold attacks on prejudice and race wars by placing them in these separate cities, allowing them to leave at any time using immigration visa. In the case of Donald Duck and Goofy Goof however, they were foreigners from another world, one that was much, much farther away from Zootopia's coordinates.

"If you are looking for a place to stay," Judy said trying to be sympathetic. "You can bunk with me in my new apartment. That is if I like to know your reason for being here."

"Visiting Donald's relatives in Duckburg," the panther said. "But I don't we've been properly introduced."

He leaned down to her for a better view.

"Sora."

His right hand reached for her left, and in a second, the two were shaking hands.

"Judy Hopps."

Before he could introduce Donald and Goofy to her, Sora's head panned from left to right, taking in the marvelous metropolis.

"You know, this city just so…magnificent."

"Exactly," Judy nodded. "That's why I've come here, to be a police officer?"

"Are there many rabbit officers in your division?" asked Donald curiously. "Cause I don't see anything besides elephants, rhinos, giraffe and a lot of a big animals."

He placed his hands on his hips as he spoke, turning left and right by fifty degrees until he went back to a chuckling Judy.

"Not exactly," she confessed, holding back the sad nature of her role. "I'm the only one. The very first rabbit officer actually."

Perceived that Judy had a scored an effort, Sora altered the subject.

"Well, why don't you show us around? Since I'm also an explorer of sorts,"

So Judy led the way in a self-guided tour of the city. They went to the ever popular Bug-Burga fast-food restaurant, where they had a light snack of plant based proteins, with Sora having a grasshopper shake, Donald and Goofy shared cricket chips and Judy had a six-inch cicada burger that spanned her taste buds beyond vegetarian atmosphere of her old home. They took her to a Mighty Ducks game at the hockey stadium where the team players, alleged to be "aliens" from an oddly named planet dubbed "Puckworld", fought against the Tundratown Wolves. It was fifty to ten in the final goal, and the Ducks had endured their fiftieth victory in over twenty years. Sora was very much interested in the legends of these ducks from another world (but that's another story).

* * *

Following a long walk along the streets, about three hours of browsing through a shoe store known as Preyda, some greengrocer's store and a handbag manufacturing facility, the quartet came to the Grand Pangolin Arms in Savannah Central, following the address given to Judy by her father on a small white note of paper. The exterior was a dull grey-white with the possibility of resembling a miniature version of the Plaza Hotel on Earth in New York City mixed with the appearance of a simple brownstone. They went inside to the lobby without a word and they turned their heads at the vintage appearance of a wooden desk where an armadillo wearing red rimmed glasses, a dark blue jacket embroidered with poppies and green daisies on each end, a light turquoise shirt with a red beaded necklace and a bright red skirt reading a book. It was _White Fang_ by Jack Londog.

Judy tapped the bell on the desk with her right hand and the armadillo, whose name in gold was Dharma Armadillo, looked up at them. Her eyes held a non-distinctive look when she gazed upon the four newcomers, peering her head over them as Judy introduced herself.

"Hello Miss, room for four, please? Maybe with a spare room…for my guests?"

Without saying a word, Dharma greeted her guests with a soft smile and said.

"Follow me."

She reached for the number four key on the wall behind her and walked towards the stairs. Judy was nearly exhausted from carrying her suitcase to all the places Goofy, Donald and Sora had taken her to, wishing she had gotten her room sooner before going out to all those places. She tried to remain strong as she carried it and her orange umbrella up that one flight of stairs and when they got there, Dharma opened the door for them, finalizing Judy and her friend's stay with her own tagline.

"And welcome to the Grand Pangolin Arms. Luxury apartments with charm."

For the first time in four hours, Judy's smile had twisted into a frown. The apartment looked thin with wooden floorboards and a faded grey-green wallpaper with panther paw prints and some other indescribable markings. One wooden shelf with hooks under it was attached to the left side, while the right side had a five-foot mirror that was well fit for a footwear store. A red brick column on the left side wall serving as a fireplace was built next to a fifty-inch-long bed with a bright blue blanket and two pillows varying from big on the left and small on the right. Two framed portraits hung opposite to a wooden desk with a drawer and a lantern, finalized by a chair that looked lonely in the golden light of the sun through the tall window.

"Complimentary housing once a month," Dharma resumed as she handed the key to Judy. She dropped into the bunny's left hand and the pointed position of her left index finger added a stern tone of her voice. "Don't loose your key."

"We won't, Miss," said Donald, trying his clear his voice for the armadillo to understand.

As she turned to leave for her office, Judy said "Thank you" in return and two members of the deer family, a gemsbok in a red shirt and a kudu in a blue one passed her by. Judy and her new friends watched them enter into the room on her right. She waved her right hand at them in a friendly way to the one in red.

"Hi! I'm Judy Hopps, your new neighbor!"

"And I'm Sora, he's Don-"

But the uninterested gemsbok, whose name was Pronk Oryx-Antlerson, passed them without even making eye contact with him. He opened the can of Coca-Cola in his left hand with his right index finger, muttering loudly.

"Yeah, well we're loud."

The frustrated kudu behind him carrying a brown bag of groceries, whose name was Bucky, also had little interest in this little bunny and the strange newcomers. All he had to say was:

"Don't expect us to apologize for it."

The door slammed loudly, causing Judy to flinch, but not too much for either her, Sora, Goofy or Donald, who remained content, yet initially offended by these rude half-brothers.

"Maybe they won't be so bad once ya get ta know them," Goofy smiled with positivity.

Judy picked up the suitcase into her left hand and walked slowly into the room, taking in the damp conditions and details before making her final decision to move out in search of another apartment complex. Her first subject was the wallpaper.

"Greasy walls."

Sora followed her tracks in the invisible footprints she left behind. Judy placed the suitcase down, looking distraught at the bed.

"Rickety bed."

From behind the wall, Bucky and Pronk could heard screaming pungently in profane words.

"Shut the fuck up!"

"You shut the fuck up!"

"WILL YOU FUCKING SHUT YOUR ASS?!"

Goofy and Donald covered their ears, closing their eyes for a "hear no evil, see no evil" prayer. Sora noticed the small portraits of a pig in a forest green outfit circa 1594 and a bear in a red suit and top hat rattling from the half-brothers heads butting against each other. Judy described the third detail for him.

"Crazy neighbors."

Just when it looked like she would change her mind, a smile shot the muscles in her lips and her back dropped down on the bed.

"I LOVE THIS PLACE!"

Her cry was as loud as the cursing neighbors shouting away at each other for apparent reason. Sora could only refuse.

"Well I don't!"

"Hey, like Goofy said, it's not so bad once you get used to it."

Goofy was willing to ask the question of how she was able to overhear him, before it was obvious that being a rabbit, Judy's hearing was advanced. Even what went on behind the walls seemed even thinner than what normal mammals heard.

Four minutes later after taking in the condition of the bed, she was unpacking her things from the trunk. When she saw the envelope containing the one thousand and four hundred dollars, she curiously opened it and counted the bills. It was plain to see that she had forgotten about her ten percent of the earnings.

"Your family must be wealthy to give you all that money," Sora said looking over her left shoulder.

Judy turned her head over to face him.

"I didn't mean to ask personal questions, Judy. I was just curious."

"I understand," Judy smiled. "Now why don't you, Donald and Goofy look for some snacks? I'm still feeling bit hungry even after that lunch."

"You sure?" Sora sounded suspicious.

"I'm sure," Judy replied sweetly. "I need to prepare for Monday, my first day on the job."

Tomorrow was Sunday, if she wrote a check of one thousand two hundred and sixty dollars to her family now, she could deposit the money on that day and have the rest of the day for further preparations before going on to work the day after tomorrow. All she needed for tomorrow was ten hours' worth of sleep.

So Sora left the room, taking Donald and Goofy with him, leaving her alone to perform a quick hot shower before retiring. It almost felt nice to be four feet tall, in this way she could do smaller cases, like those in the Little Rodentia district where the mice were about half of her size. Her call home would have to wait until Monday, when could tell her mother with even more eventful. As such, she decided to give her a text message which simply read "I have arrived" and sent it to her, waiting another three minutes for the response "How's it like". After the conversation that took place after Sora, Donald and Goofy's immediate return, the trio decided to sleep on the floor until Dharma could arrange a proper bed for the three of them. This went on for the following day, when the three went out shopping and exploring the sights of the great metropolis.

Looking forward to her first day at the Zootopia Police Department, Judy slept peacefully through a very quiet night.


	3. Morgana McCawber

So whatever the reason, his parents or his love for comics, he stood outside his house hating the criminals that desecrated his city.

Drake Mallard was holding an indigo-colored Filofax in his right hand as his feet were planted in the grass of his backyard, thinking that a breath of fresh air was all he needed to control his temper. Criminal activity, as he had heard in the news, was reaching an all-time high and even though he had locked up nearly all of his major enemies, several of their fans had apparently honored their actions and were attempting to arrogate control of Zootopia, St. Canard and Cape Suzette from the ground up. Any of lack of activity as Darkwing Duck, and the city would be so corrupted from crime and civil disobedience, that he would not be needed anymore.

Putting his metaphysical confliction between the identities of himself and Darkwing Duck at rest, Drake placed his left index finger on the "T" section of his confronted criminals.

"By level of offense," he muttered to himself. "Taurus Bulba….I hate you for taking Gosalyn's family away."

He turned the page forward.

"Tuskerninni…I hate you for trying to reshape the film industry in your own image."

He skipped to the "B" section.

"Bushroot…I know you mean well about the environment, and your intentions are noble, but I hate you for being an eco- _terrorist_."

He turned the Filofax over to the "M" section.

"Megavolt…I hate you for trying to soak up all the electricity in Zootopia for your own selfish reasons. To think I liked you better when we were classmates."

He flipped back to the "L" section.

"Liquidator…I hate you for your various attempts to pollute the water reserve as well as having the purest of water all to yourself. Not to mention I completely _loathe_ your inexhaustibly _shitty_ slogans."

He glared when he went five chapters forward to the "Q" files.

"Quackerjack…I double-hate you for all those lethal toys. Children can get hurt from playing with action figures that have dangerous sharp accessories…as well as jackknives."

His anger increased even further when he came back to the "N" dossiers. Turning his voice into the growl of a beast.

"Negaduck…eternal damnnation."

Closing the Filofax very quickly, Drake knew that enough hatred in every area of his body was enough to send him flying through the roof, literally. He took a large lump of oxygen, swallowed it, turned his body one hundred and eighty degrees clockwise and walked back into the house.

In the kitchen he placed the Filofax gently down on the island table and walked straight to the door. He didn't bother to tell Gosalyn where he was going, he assumed that she was too busy doing her homework, playing video games or even reading college romance novels, something that was likely to either expand her vocabulary or deteriorate it.

Three blocks down from his house on 537 Avian Way took him to the Avian Cemetery. Drake, like any other "normal" citizen would have been saddened by the sight of graves belonging to the deceased, but kept a strong face in his own way respecting the victims of criminal actions and terrorism. Knowing that Gosalyn's relatives were buried beyond the hill that led to a five-hundred-foot width of tombstones, he decided to enter cemetery and perhaps pay a visit to her biological parents with the latest news in his life as Darkwing Duck. Drake was now wishing that he brought Gosalyn along with him in hopes of letting her talk to the parents that left her life too soon, walking all the way to the top of the hill. He peered over the view like a vulture, with his eyes scanning the sun dipping into the horizon. There was no one else there but him and he continued walking down the hill, resuming his search for the tombs of Gosalyn's mother, father and Professor Waddlemeyer…

It was the duck in red that caught his attention.

Drake looked over and realized that the duck was female judging by her voice, which had the sultry purr of a succubus. Her upper body was craning down on the square marble grave of a duck named Donna, a victim of apparent suicide two years ago brought upon her by her strict but well-meaning parents (she was nearly eighteen after all).

"If you wanted to escape your parents," the odd duck said to the grave with her hands clasped in empathy. "Why not just kill _them_ with the knife instead of your throat? I know how much you wanted to be a singer like Gazelle and they wanted you to become a lawyer or a dentist…but sometimes, people just don't understand the true passion for what children really want."

The lady's words were of little concern for Drake, who walked up to her, aroused by curiosity and the belief that she would turn out to be a beautiful young duck. He placed his right hand to his beak and cleared his throat, causing the lady to look over her right shoulder.

And what a beauty she was! A _femme fatale_ who had the hair of Mary Shelley, the Bride of Frankenstein, phlox colored eyelids and a large round ring of gold that served as her necklace. Drake felt a lump in his Adam's apple as he felt himself being tempted by this goddess of mystery and enigmatic culture. But still, he did his best to keep a professional stature and stopped when he was about three feet in front of the lady.

"Excuse me, but…"

He felt like there was something in common, and it did not involve speaking to dead relatives, but to random persons in general.

"Do you speak to the dead, too?"

"Yes," replied the lady duck dressed in blood. "But I think my job here is done."

She moved her way past him. Drake could see that her feet were covered by the long dress that extended at least two feet to the ground beyond her legs. His interest in this duck was starting to consume his mind, for he never felt this sort of emotion before.

"I'm sorry if I barged in on your conversation with that grave," he said walking beside her left arm. "The person buried in there must have been a dear friend or a relative…or perhaps something else."

"She was something else," the lady duck's face turned to his. "An experiment."

Drake did not want to know if this female was planning to exhume the remains of Donna and use her for some kind of re-animation or perhaps a secret, if not sexual desire involving necrophilia. But, wanting to know the exact truth, he asked.

"What kind of experiment?"

"A test, really," said the female. "Perhaps if I talked to Donna out loud she could reply to me…and she did."

"What did she say?"

"She said," the lady's voice turned to the sobbing groans of an angsty teenager. "'You don't understand! Nobody understands! If I committed murder on my parents, it would be sin!'"

She resumed her normal voice.

"No matter how hard I tried to console her, she would not listen. Maybe she was regretful of her actions."

Drake, assuming the lady's words as pure humor, asked her incredulously.

"Really, then how come _I_ didn't hear anything?"

The lady continued to smile, looking at him and coming to the conclusive statement that this stranger was someone she could trust.

"Because you are a mere mortal," the lady said with a slow pattern of her vocals. "and _I_ am…a practitioner of dark magic."

"Dark magic?"

As much as he wanted to believe her, Drake did not dare to try coaxing her for solid proof. He feared that she would cast a spell on him that would eventually result into a fate much worse than death.

"I'm a sorceress, a witch to be exact. But you probably shouldn't tell anyone about this, the mortals of your city might think of me as a…heretic?"

Drake puffed his chest and stepped in front of the lady, stopping her in her tracks. He could almost heart his heart beating faster with every inch of getting to know more and more about this mysterious duck of supernatural origin.

"Well," he replied in the tone of a ladies man. "I'm a duck of mystery of myself, but I'd like you to know two things first…"

He held up his right index finger, emphasizing the number.

"One, I have a secret too that involves saving people, but I don't plan to tell you now until the time is right."

Then he lifted his middle finger for the second number.

"Two, I would never think of you as a heretic, you may look the part, but you're too kind."

The lady smiled. Drake prepared his right hand for the formal greeting of a handshake, which ensued just after he introduced himself.

"Anyway, I don't believe we've been introduced. I'm Drake Mallard, greengrocer and sometimes a stay-at-home father."

Drake had fibbed the bit about himself being a "greengrocer", but he was careful not to let the lady of a seemingly aristocratic background be convinced that he was unemployed.

"I'm Morgana Macawber, the president of Macawber's Mushrooms."

The name "Macawber" seemed to ring a very loud alarm bell into Drake's memory.

"Perhaps we can get together again sometime when it's less cold."

The temperature had been dropping to sixty degrees Fahrenheit around the hour Drake had arrived at the cemetery, approximately 6:06 PM. He did not notice this change of cold air until Morgana Macawber had mentioned it. Maybe she was indeed a witch, for it was her verbal use of magic that made Drake acknowledge the cold that gave his body a slight shiver.

"Very interesting weather we're having," he replied looking up at the sky.

"Yes," Morgana said softly. "Very interesting."

Another subject, a random one, flooded her mind.

"Tell me, with all their money and power, why do some millionaires want to jump off a bridge? If they had magic, perhaps they do so much more in their lives. I guess that's one reason why my family hates mortals."

"Well, mortals see, mortals do," Drake confessed in a guilty voice.

As Darkwing Duck, he often wished for superpowers of his own, but nobody is perfect, and in his case, he was lucky to be the rare example of a superhero who was able to fight crime using prestidigitation and an arsenal of gadgetry. He looked back at Morgana, who stared into the direction of the sun as it went down and it was apparent by her closed eyes that she found the heat to be rather coarse…or warm, the type of warmth that a person gets when he or she is affected by beautiful memories of love, happiness and the energy of positive emotions.

"I empathize your feelings," Morgana said at last. "But if you need a call for a pizza dinner, I'll be happy to have one of my associates deliver it for you. I'm sure you must be getting back your house chores now…ta-ta!"

And with a wave of her left little finger tied to a ravaged drape of her bright crimson dress, she set off down the sidewalk and into the direction of the city.

Drake watched her go for another twenty seconds, then walked back to his house without another glance. As he made his way down the sidewalk, he was feeling as light as a feather, unable to extract the untamed beauty of the enchantress known as Morgana Macawber out of his head. But pretty soon, as the house came within his field of vision, he started wondering to himself…

 _Could she be related to Moloculo Macawber?_


	4. Meter Maid

The Zootopia Police Department was headquartered in the middle of the Savannah District. It was a large five story building that boasted the colors of African sand with an entrance of pillared glass windows. Its roof was a garden of grass and bushes with a glass dome of giraffe stripes placed above the façade entrance. Arizonian rocks festooned the walls of the exterior in the most realistic shape possible, yet looking as though they had been whittled by gem carvers. Six cliffs of artificial rock crowned the entrance like Pride Rock of the Sahara, even adding a flat ledge of stone to the right side of the windows. The length of the building appeared to be about eight hundred feet, or maybe five hundred on Judy's legs as she strolled in with Sora, Donald and Goofy in tow.

Judy started her day at five-thirty in the morning. Already dressed in her police uniform, she jumped to the mirror rubbed, the badge for a second with her right hand, opened the door, swiped the keys and made her way down to the office where Dharma was just about opening up her office.

"See you tonight!" she sang, waving her right hand as she rushed out the door to meet Goofy, Donald and Sora. As they walked one block away from the Grand Pangolin Arms, Sora spoke out.

"So, you're going to be a police officer right?"

Judy nodded with a "m-hm" meaning yes.

"Do you think they'll accept you?" Donald's turn to ask was met with "They will."

Then Goofy asked. "Don't ya think you're being over-confidential with yourself."

"I think you mean overconfident," Judy said with no hint of annoyance. "I just hope that when I get there, I'm gonna be treated with equal respect."

When they were inside, the hall was bustling with police activity. A male tiger officer was pushing in a white wolf with a light blue shirt with a lighter baby blue stripe in the middle and beige trousers to a holding cell. The wolf's mouth was covered by a muzzle, used to prevent sinking his sharp teeth into the skin of his victims. The décor of the lobby itself was cavernous, with blue walled railings with green triangles representing trees and walls of orange hidden behind rows of greenery. The floor was pink and vanilla marble and rest of the building had the typical police department rooms of cubicles, briefing, records, boiler room, holding cells, technical services, restrooms, lockers, parking lot, interview rooms, line up gallery, armory, electronics lab, ballistics, plant room, press room, dispatch and offices for patrol, homicide, vice, arson and kidnapping.

A chubby looking cheetah was eating to a bowl of cereal. His desk was flanked with a jar of gumballs inbetween the microphone and the computer on his right, a box of Lucky Chomps, a purple snowglobe, a girlish pink Gazelle mug and the name "Clawhauser" engraved on a gold nameplate on his left. Judy came up, the top of her ears sticking above the level of the desk when she called out.

"Excuse me?"

The cheetah known as Benjamin Clawhauser stopped in his tracks, holding the spoon in his right hand as his eyes looked left and right for the source of the voice. His internal emotions made him feel like he had just swallowed his cereal down the wrong pipe, but he didn't choke, for when his eyes laid on the female rabbit that said "Hi" a second later, he would be startled.

"Down here?"

Sure enough he looked down, with a panther, a duck and a dog stopping behind her a moment later. Startled, he put the silver spoon into the bowl, placing it down on the left hand side of the desk next to the box.

"Oh. My. Goodness. They really did hire a bunny cop."

Smiling, he placed his hands against his puffy cheeks. Given his flamboyant attitude, Judy would have perceived him as an autistic homosexual, but what he said next almost seemed to be inappropriate.

"I gotta say, you're even cuter than I thought you were."

Judy seemed to cringe at this. She tried to defend herself as her face carried a look of discomposure.

"Actually, only another rabbit can call another rabbit cute, but when other animals do it, it's a little politically incorrect."

Clawhauser covered his mouth with his hands like he had just committed a scandal, then he released his mouth and his hands in a shielding position.

"Forgive me if I said that. Before I make another mistake, I just want you to know that my name is Benjamin Clawhauser, the guy that everybody else thinks is just another flabby, donut loving cop stereotyping you."

"It's okay," Judy sighed, resuming her bright, flashy smile once more.

"You just did," Sora's own face was discerning, but tried not to sound too offended. Then his eyes swelled upon something dark in contrast to his bright yellow-orange fur.

"There's something under your neck," he added.

Clawhauser padded his neck with his right hand, finding a quarter bitten donut glazed in chocolate. He treated it like it was own pet as he said.

"There you are you little Dickens!"

Surprisingly, he was also a hypocrite after implying that he was not another donut-loving policeman once he placed it down his throat. Judy directed both index fingers to her right, her simple quest to find the briefing room having turned into a lagging social conversation.

"Before I forget," she told the obese cheetah. "Which way should I get to roll call?"

"The bull pen's over there to the left," said Clawhauser through his stuffed mouth, aiming his left thumb to the direction to the hallway leading to the said.

"Thank you," sang out the quartet and they walked contently away.

Clawhauser sighed as his eyes followed the bunny, sympathy settling into his head. His thoughts were low, in a voice that he hoped she would not have to hear.

"That poor bunny's gonna get killed."

The other officers, among them a lion, polar bear, a rhino, a hippo and elephant stared at Judy and her party of three. Underestimating her size, they were certain that reality would come crashing into her once she had set foot on the danger zone of her first case.

Over by the right wall of the door was another cheetah who looked much thinner than Clawhauser. He wore a cap and reading the morning newspaper for any articles involving criminal activity. Sora, Donald and Goofy went over, curious to know more about the staff members of this ginormous place. He just sat there in his gold and red leather swivel chair reading the morning edition whose front page article read "Two More Mammals Gone Missing". His eyes studied the interior with care, taking in every word and detail of other incidents. Judy, Sora, Donald and Goofy stepped up to meet him.

"Well, Bonkers D. Bonkers!"

Bonkers' eyes had the same reaction as Clawhauser's over a minute ago.

"It's been a while since I've watched any of your films."

"Sixteen years," Bonkers sighed, sipping his cup as he reminisced like a veteran. "Work's been kinda slow, but if I did more cases, I could get promoted from patrol to sergeant."

His eyes went to the trio.

"Are these friends of yours?"

"Visitors actually," Judy corrected with a shy beam in her smile. "This is Goofy, Sora and Donald Duck."

As her left arm directed on each member of the trio whose names were mentioned, Bonkers observed the duck up and down, then slanted his head fifteen degrees to the right in the average puzzled tilt.

"Have we met somewhere before?"

Donald blinked his eyes twice and looked into Bonkers', making comparisons. There was no way they could have met before, unless he had seen the cheetah in one of his films and television episodes. Little did they know that Donald had visited Zootopia before during a scouting trip commissioned by King Mickey for research purposes, and just when it looked like he would be mugged of his status by a lowly bull-dog criminal, Bonkers unintentionally stepped in, saving his life. The memory of the very event that turned Bonkers into a police officer seemed to have faded into the unknown.

"It's possible," Donald spoke at last, shrugging his arms. "But I don't think I would have remembered."

Then the cheetah directed his attention span to Judy.

"Who did you say your name was?"

"Judy Hopps. I'm new here."

Bonkers darted his eyes above the northeast corner of his lids, then to the northwest, having heard that name before.

"Oh yes…um…Chief Bogo did say that we had our very first bunny recruit. And with me being the very first cheetah officer next to my friend Clawhauser, I would be honored if we did cases together."

Despite his predator status, Bonkers was a self-proclaimed vegetarian, seeing Judy as an image of feminism and equality. Before he could remind her, Judy and the trio were already on their way to the briefing room.

Coming to the door, Judy placed her left hand against it, peering into the avocado green carpeted interior. Sora pushed the door open with his left hand, allowing Goofy and Donald to go in first so not to hit Judy before she was safely out of harm's way. She walked in looking strong and boisterous, passing her thirty-two soon-to-be peers in eight different seats by glancing her head right and left at each table. The lion and the rhino looked down at her, pitying her size before her head turned right at the sight of a lion and a polar bear in the middle of an arm wrestle. She hoisted herself up onto the orange metal chair on the edge of the first table on the left and while standing up, tried to find socialism in the form of a rhino named McHorn sitting next to her on her right hand side along with a wolf and a tiger.

"Are you ready to make the world a better place?"

She curled her right hand into a fist. But McHorn was uninterested and Judy was able to confirm this by the way he rolled his eyes counterclockwise. The moment of a new friendship, however, went without a hitch by a "ATTEN-HUT!" from a hippo officer named Higgens. A shadow of a devil's horns appeared behind the frosted glass window of the door that read "Zootopia's Finest" underneath the badge logo. Sora's initial thought was a Heartless taking the shape of a wildebeest, but once the figure stepped into view, it revealed itself to be a black cape buffalo whose police uniform had four stars on each lapel. To Judy, she certain that without a doubt that this buffalo was the head chief of all the police precincts in Zootopia.

Chief "Buffalo" Bogo had been the head of precinct one for over twenty years. The very soul of intelligence and reliability, his gruff attitude and pristine record made him the ideal police captain. Officers respected him and Mayor Lionheart and his council went out of their way to let him act as a voice of reason. Some plainclothes detectives would even switch their positions to precinct one when learning that he would work there only to discover that there were no vacant spots available in the Savannah Central headquarters. Whenever anyone would ask him about his career on the force, he told of only a few stories, mostly uneventful crimes that did not involve death. Here in the present, he was just about reaching the podium with a clipboard in his left hand.

Placing the clipboard down on the podium, he grunted.

"Everybody sit."

He could only see Judy's ears when sat down herself and this only caused her to stand up again. Sora, unsure where to sit since all the seats on the tables were taken, asked the chief.

"Where do we sit?"

Chief Bogo aimed his eyes on Sora like he was a target.

"If you can't find somewhere to sit, then I suggest standing. It helps to build the muscles in your legs."

Sora made his decision and Donald and Goofy, mentally agreeing with him to a single point, laid their backs by the bottom orange lined wall. Bogo resumed by tapping his right index finger three times on the podium.

"I've got three items on the docket. But first…"

His eyes went stronger than his brows.

"We need to acknowledge the elephant in the room."

He panned his head ten degrees to the right.

"Francine…"

The elephant standing in the middle of the second row on the chief's right hand side, Francine Trunkaby, was pushing thirty-one and had emerald green eyes with a tinge of pink pigment in her skin. Her face was timid and her initial thoughts were the fear of punishment…suspension being one of them. Due to her cowardice of Bogo's ruthless behavior and her size leading to some accidental spills, bumps and minor crashes that could cause injury, she dreaded that this day would come. Everyone else stared at her, muddled at first, then the apprehension soon hit them.

"Happy birthday."

Sighing with relief, and remembering that her birthday had been today, Francine's right arm grabbed the tiger officer throwing punches at the upper section of her arm into a noogie, using her left hand to rub the tiger's head. Judy, Sora, Goofy and Donald clapped for her, yet the rabbit slowed to a halt when she finally saw the obstreperous nature of the noogie, imagining herself in that dangerous position. Her eyes turned to Chief Bogo, who did not seem to care about these actions. It was certainly obvious that he had this type of behavior before, not minding any damage to the office unless if it was that major like a table. Speaking of the chief, once the din had settled down, she and her friends turned to face the buffalo.

"There are some new recruits that I would like to introduce."

Judy puffed her chest for a closed smile, Goofy saluted, Sora remained stiff and Donald gave the gentlemanly pose of having both hands gripping his shirt, eyes closed and head pointing to the ceiling. Bogo's words, however, did not acknowledge any of this specifically.

"But I am not going to because…I don't give a shit."

Judy's smile turned into a wince, Sora relaxed his position by drawing a sharp breath into his throat and Donald and Goofy looked at each other in dismay.

"Finally, we have fourteen missing mammal cases."

Judy looked at a large map on the wall, close behind Bogo's left hand side. There were fourteen snapshot portraits of the said animals pinned to the map by red threads, pinpointing their last known locations. Two polar bears, one in an apple green sweater, the other in a light purple suit with a red tie from the middle of Tundratown, with a coyote in a blue shirt and a cougar in a brown top on the bottom near the border to the Canyonlands. Near the Canyonlands was the location of a brown bear in a light blue shirt with some white circle for a symbol or logo of a sort. The Rainforest District on the western side, marked the headshots of a tiger in a ruby red shirt and a cheetah in a light puce t-shirt. In the Sahara Square, the locations of a tiger in a faded blue dress shirt and a coyote in a plain blue one seemed to be about fifty-eight miles from where they had been last seen. Finally, in Downtown, a bear in a red jersey was marked on the top, seventy miles apart from the white tiger in an orchid colored shirt. Near the middle-bottom of Savanna Central were the locations and headshots of a black panther in a violet jacket with a white shirt and a larger brown bear in an emerald green cotton shirt.

"All predators from a large polar bear to a teensy little otter."

Upon mentioning the otter, Judy's eyes rested on the picture of an otter with orchid colored skin. He had round spectacles and wore a lime green seater with four thin diamonds in the middle. His picture, pinpointing the edge of Sahrara Square to his last known location, made him look content and perfectly normal with no ulterior motives…like some mammals.

Sora, who had been looking at the picture as well, faced his attention back to Judy, whose eyes had returned to Chief Bogo, expressing a serious face like she was indefinitely determined to take the case.

"And City Hall is right up my ass to find them," Chief Bogo resumed.

The giraffe handed him four blood red binders into his right hand.

"This is priority number one."

He put his glasses on with his free left hand, opening up the first binder.

"Assignments: Officers Grizzoli, Fangmeyer, Delgato; your teams take missing mammals from the Rainforest District."

Two of the officers in question, the lion and the wolf, took the first binder and left the room.

"Officers McHorn, Rhinowitz, Wolford; your teams take Sahara Square."

The three officers on Judy's table left to approach the chief, handing them with the second binder, leaving the room on their way out.

"Officers Higgins, Snarlov, Trunkaby: Tundratown."

This procedure followed with the remaining three officers. Judy, Sora, Donald and Goofy were the last to go, but the chief did not acknowledge them for obvious reasons.

"Finally, not counting our three visitors, our first bunny: Officer Hopps—"

Judy's smile glowed at the mention of her name. Her hands were locked together, her eyes widened and ears popped up in a form of hope. She held her breath as the chief removed his glasses to declare the assignment.

"Parking duty."

Hearing a sour note play in her head, Judy's ears refused to believe his words. In fact, they drooped along with her smile, now a crestfallen frown. This completely went against her expatiations of the "anyone can be anything" slogan, leading her mind to believe that Lionheart had committed false advertising that went unnoticed for any attempt at a lawsuit. She understood her new position as something that was deemed safe for a bunny, leaving the larger animals handle the more dangerous obstacles.

"Parking duty?" Sora's verbal reaction was just about as surprised as his associates.

Once Chief Bogo's left hand was on the door, Judy called out, climbing under the table to approach him.

"Chief Bogo, sir? You said there were fourteen missing mammal cases."

Bogo placed his glasses back on, his discontent expression matching his response.

"So?"

"So, my new friends and I can handle one. I was top of my class at the academy."

Chief Bogo's eyes remained undaunted.

"I don't give a damn."

Then it was Sora who stepped forward.

"Sir, I can assure you that she is not just some token bunny, or as they say on my island 'pity hire'. I mean, with those big ears of hers, she could make a great espionage agent. So why don't you give her a chance and let her do an easy case before taking on the mammals?"

"And what island do you come from?" Chief Bogo asked off the subject.

"Destiny Islands, why?"

"Never mind, writing one-hundred tickets a day should be easy. Perhaps you can help her if you want a place in this department."

And he left with a wag of his tail and the loud slam of the door. Goofy and Donald had their arms crossed, wishing for an easier response.

"Whose side are we on anyway?" the duck inquired.

"I'm on Judy's side," Goofy admitted. "I'd rather take an adventure than pull people over like some carjacker."

Whenever she kept her anger at bay, Judy's right foot began to tap, slow at first then faster until finally after a repeated ten times the foot stood its ground and she placed her hands on her hips in the thought of facing a challenge.

"I'm not going to write a hundred tickets."

"Then what do you plan to do?" Sora asked curiously.

An epiphany zapped into her head.

"I'm going to write two hundred tickets."

She looked up at the clock with a serious face.

"Before noon."

"Whatever you say, Jude," Goofy said, slipping out of the door. "We'll meet ya at the parkin' lot when you're ready."

Heading to her locker, Judy snapped into action, she strapped on her derby and a vest of orange and yellow representing traffic, and headed through the halls to the parking lot where Sora, Donald and Goofy waited by the small electric three wheeler with a large windshield on the front. It was festooned with two orange lights on each side near the top which had a dark blue light that was flanked by a red light on the left in traditional police colors. Behind the driver's seat was a wagon with three cones of varying sizes, one large, one medium and one small. The rear was also festooned with the occasional solar lights, rear lights, detector ad a long chalk stick to mark cars.

"We figured it was yours," Sora told her.

"Thanks."

Letting herself in, Judy strapped her seatbelt on, checked her rearview mirror, stepped her right foot on the gas pedal and she was off. The vehicle was slow at first, but began to pick up speed as it made its way down the street. Sora followed her on his Keyblade Glider (which he mostly used for his own means of transportation aside from the Gummi Ship) and Goofy and Donald hopped aboard on the wings.

Judy's first duty was the chalk stick. She used the extension in her right hand to mark the tires of a red Ford Fusion, a lime green Isetta and a navy convertible. She looked left and right without a single word, not looking back to see if Sora and his friends were behind him. Then all of a sudden a loud "BEEP" came into her right ear. Slamming the brake pedal with her right foot, the vehicle screeched to a halt and she leaned her upper body from the right side of the car to look back at the parking meter just twenty feet behind her. It's light went from green to an "expired" red in less than a second. Sora stopped his glider just a foot from the car when Judy smiled with squinted eyes at this opportunity.

Pushing the vehicle in reverse, Judy stopped in-between an orange coup and a grey-black SUV. Then she hopped out of the car and pressed the numbers in her PDA, creating a ticket. She placed that and an orange parking violation on the windshield when another "BEEP" resonated into her left ear.

"There's one!" Goofy shouted, hearing the "BEEP" as well.

"I can see that, thank you," Judy replied without trying to sound rude.

She placed the ticket on that other car, a red Porsche before moving on to the blue Nissan as fast as her feet could carry her. On Baobab Avenue, she was met with the fifty-foot-tall Suzuki Every whose giraffe colors implied the species of its selected driver.

"We could try making a ladder of Goofy, Donald and me," Sora offered.

"I've got a better idea," said Judy, her eyes looking back to the right.

She bounced off the rear, twirled in the air towards the lamppost, bounced off of it and flew five feet above the car, sliding the ticket in on the left windshield wiper. In a masterly finish, Judy landed her feet on the sidewalk, somersaulted, rolled over, straightened herself and levitated herself for a second before she placed her hands on her hips, satisfied with her performance.

Three minutes later, Sora, Donald and Goofy did their part by holding out tickets while Judy checked the apple green Ford 021C for any violation. She instructed Donald by pointing her right index finger towards the Mitsubishi Eclipse, handing him a ticket before he went over. Goofy handled the red four door on the opposite side of the street and Sora slapped his own ticket on a four foot tall Isetta that was the perfect size for a mouse. However, strong wings from the south had blown it away before driver could reach it.

The numbers, beeps, tickets and extra assistance all came in by eleven fifty-nine a.m. as Judy observed the time on the ornate clock. Checking her PDA, her three friends watched over her shoulders to see that the number had reached two hundred. Her score precise and having accomplished her dare and test of speed and agility.

"Two hundred tickets! Boom!"

Judy high fived each of them with her left hand, soon becoming a victim of her own job by suddenly remembering where she had parked her car.

"Two oh one."

She added the bonus ticket to the right windshield wiper when the loud horn of a truck with the label "Fresh Doe" on the wagon brought her out of her thoughts. The sheep driver, on his way to make a delivery, saw an inattentive fox with a rusted gold shirt with a necktie of dark and light purple stripes in a perpendicular direction nearly having gotten himself run over. The driver soon berated him as he rushed to the other side.

"Watch where you're going, fox!"

The fox just held his arms open in an expression that seemed to say "Why the hell do you care?" and went on his way. Judy felt her nose twitch as the fox proceeded down the street. Sora looked over her, watching the fox go by as well. His appearance, body structure and cool eyes at half-mast seemed to ring some distant bells into his memory.

"I think I've seen that fox before. He was staring at my pendant."

Judy inspected the silver crown pendant that Sora always wore by gazing at it.

"How much is it worth?"

"I can't tell. I've had it for twenty years."

"Family heirloom?"

"I guess you could say that. It helps to bring light into this world from the darkness that tries to consume it."

Before realizing he had said too much, Judy eyed Sora, confused and wracked by this lack of sense. Donald and Goofy were well aware about the effects of meddling with the affairs of other worlds, but of course, things had relaxed over time with disappearance of the Heartless and the Nobodies.

"To put it simply, it's just a good luck charm."

Taking it in, Judy turned her gaze back on the fox, who was looking left and right, his expression content yet it seemed like he was hiding a dark history beneath his face of serene emotions. Judy, not believing that all foxes were bad, especially a certain Gideon Grey, had to make an exception since the city was filled with criminals who deceived people for money, also known as con artists. As an elephant in blue passed by, the fox walked slowly, then started running towards the red door of Jumbeaux's Café, an old-fashioned ice cream parlor deck with size and servings fit for the elephant that ran the restaurant, Jerry Jumbeaux Jr. Judy squinted her eyes at the sense of danger, then went off into the street. She looked both ways as she did so, running on light feet with the trio behind her and coming to a stop at the front window on the right. Her view was obscured by an elephant couple and a young male hippo in a blue striped shirt, forcing her to enter the parlor by herself.

The interior of the ice cream parlor was the archetypical image of one in other human worlds. There were three dispensers for soft drinks, with a napkin dispense and a canister for multi-colored straws. The walls were decorated in pink and white stripes, with the logo "J" placed on the walls of the counter. Four stools of red cushion lined the counter, with the other side facing the window stored with three two foot popsicles of red, blue and yellow. There were also shelves for topping with a large bag of peanuts by the bottom where the ice cream vats lay in a cooler.

Jerry Jumbeaux Jr., son of the late Jerry Jumbeaux, was using his trunk to scoop out a strawberry flavored roll into a small bowl on an uneven size, swinging his trunk to the sack of peanuts and diving the trunk into it and sucking at least one hundred pieces and holding back his breath to avoid swallowing them. With a toot, he splattered the peanuts onto the ice cream, the first fifty sticking to the top and the other fifty lying on opposite ends. He scooped the peanuts back into the sack once he served the dish by adding a cherry to the top.

Once Judy, Sora, Goofy and Donald came in, the fox and the elephant were having a row, and it was not surprising due to their difference in size. Jerry Jr. spoke first, his anger contrasting with his pink and white uniform.

"Listen, I don't know what you're doing scrupling around during daylight hours, but I don't want any trouble here, so hit the road or I'll to throw you out."

Judy was unfortunate not to be equipped with a gun, but Sora, Donald and Goofy had their own weapons which they were now using for non-Heartless enemies. They took a step forward

"I'm not looking for any trouble either," protested the fox. "All I want is a jumbo pop for my adopted son."

From the obstructed view of the elephant in an earth green dress with floral patterns came a small fennec fox with a red pacifier and jumpsuit signifying that was a baby. His right profile could be seen from Judy's eyes as she took careful steps, in spite of the fox's suave voice and it was the smaller, snowy furred fox's eyes that locked eye contact with her. The older fox leaned down to him and said.

"Do you want the red, or the blue?"

The little one skittered over to the large red popsicle in the middle, gazing at it and pointing his left index finger upwards. Judy held her breath, fully accepting that the fox was innocent and the trinity relaxed their guard

"Come on, kid, back up," Jerry said to the baby before going his adopted father. "Listen buddy, are there not any _fox_ ice cream parlors in your joint?"

His voice seemed tough, enough for Judy to raise her suspicions, she took an extra three steps out of curiousness. Sora and his _pure animal_ friends walked three steps behind her.

"No," the older fox replied with both hands on his heart. "There are, it's just that my boy loves all things elephant related, in fact he wants to be one when he grows up."

The little fox pulled over his jumpsuit, revealing a mask that only exposed his orange eyes with large floppy ears, a pink heart on the chest, tiny horns and a floppy trunk with a built in whistle that he blew from a mouthpiece. It came out sounding more like a party blower rather than an actual trumpet of an elephant considering its childish nature of being built to an infant's height.

"Isn't he adorable?" the fox father asked, hands to his hips.

The sight of this adorableness melted the hearts of Donald, Goofy and Sora, but most of all Judy, who placed her right hand on her heart, reminding her of her own childhood when she spent some of her time dressed up as a rhinoceros. On her sixth Halloween, she had done just that, but her parents and several of her peers and siblings saw it as an offense and a complete infidelity to her own kind. But still, Judy went out of their way to get her candy and outsmart a then less deadly Gideon Grey when he failed to recognize her. It made her wonder what had happened to the fox that made the lives of herself and her school peers a living hell. The last time he heard, he had perfected his manners and was now working as a pie maker in a very reputable store. As for Travis, as Judy's mind began to wander, he had probably gone off to college to become an accountant, a philosopher and a scientist, but now was not the time to reminisce. She had a job to do that involved the fox that lay far from her by ten feet apart.

"Who would want to crush his little dreams, huh?"

Jerry Jr. just used his truck to lift a sand-colored square sign. It's message, written in bold black and red, was that of cruel acerbity:

"We reserve the right TO REFUSE SERVICE to anyone"

Making himself clear, he placed the sign down at angle where he hoped that the fox would be able to read.

"Look at the sign, fox. You reading this?"

The fox, his smile turning nervous, tried to reciprocate by admitting the truth in a timid tone.

"Yes, I can read it. I can read it perfectly."

"Good," grumbled Jerry Jr. releasing his trunk. "Now why don't you get the fuck outta here and find someone else to haggle?"

The female elephant in green, not minding Jerry Jr.'s foul tongue, looked crossly down at the two foxes and berated them more politely.

"You're holding up the line."

The younger fox made three short and one long whine of a whistle that imitated a cry. And that was Judy and the three friends from the mysterious Destiny Islands made their move.

"Excuse me, sir?" asked Judy from below.

"Can we have a word with you?" added Sora.

"No offense," Donald burst in. "But your customer service is rude."

"Hey, you're gonna hafta wait your turn like everybody else, meter maid."

To a point where she was starting to hate the name, Judy revealed her badge hidden under the vest.

"Actually, I'm an officer and I have a quick question to ask."

Jerry Jr. kept his hands on the countertop table, his ice blue eyes watching her with interest. Judy's knowledge on how elephants managed ice cream parlors and soda fountains was a perfect gross-me-out moment and how she explained it was loud and almost rude with the simplicity of her question.

"Are your customers aware that they are getting snot and mucus with their cookies and cream?"

Before an elephant couple, a male in a green striped shirt and a female in a magenta and peach orange striped dress, could take their first scoop of their recently served cookies and cream flavored ice cream, they stopped altogether when the spoons in their trunks were just about one inch away from their mouths. They exchanged the discomforting glances of repulsion and tremor, placing the spoons back into the dish and leaving the restaurant as quickly as they could without leaving a tip.

When Jerry Jr. saw this, he did not seem to take Judy's question seriously. He assumed that the repelled reaction was nothing more than lactose intolerant from both elephants. Checking her again, he asked.

"What are you talking about?"

"What she means," said Sora, taking two steps next to her. "Is that scooping ice cream with a trunk is unsanitary."

Goofy, Donald and Judy were astounded.

"How did you know?" she asked him.

"It's the same thing panthers do with hands," Sora replied, concealing his human nature.

"And it is a class three health violation," Judy added with formality.

Jerry Jr. looked back at his co-worker Delores, who was cradling a large ball of strawberry ice cream in her trunk. She looked at Jerry Jr. with wide eyes at being caught in the act of an unhygienic use of crafting the sorbet the same way her boss did. Realizing her mistake, she dropped the glob on the cooler and flung her trunk onto her apron, wiping away the remnants of the melted flavor. Then she disappeared into the bathroom, allowing Judy to resume her knowledge.

"Which is kind of a big deal," she muttered to the foxes next to her.

She went back to Jerry Jr., resuming his previous position.

"I could let you off with a warning of course if you gloved your trunks and finished selling this nice father what he and his son wanted."

"A jumbo pop if you please," smiled the fox.

Jerry Jr., imagining the unforeseen consequences of his actions, gave in with a heavy sigh that reciprocated with his size.

"Fifteen dollars."

"Thank you so much," the father fox finished, clasping his hands gracefully.

Sora went up, curious for a particular flavor associated with his "connections."

"Do you have any sea salt flavors?"

"Sure," Jerry Jr. seemed to be resuming his mood of good humor. "That'll be a five."

Sora took out the currency, (known to him as "munny") from a pouch and handed five one dollar bills onto the counter where Jerry Jr. pushed the cash into the register with his right hoof.

"That reminds me," the fox said, wide eyed out of the ordinary. "I should pay for the pop."

He padded his right pocket and felt nothing, then his left, his rear…until he finally realized the absence of life's most important tool. Now his eyes were even wider than before.

"Damn, I left it at home."

He leaned down to his son, smiling apologetically.

"Sorry, pal. This has got to be your worst birthday ever."

Cuddling his cheeks, his voice went to cute mode in response to the anger in the baby's eyes.

"Please don't be mad at me."

Kissing his son on the cheek, the fox took his right hand with his left and walked slowly away from the quartet, certain that something fortuitous would come up and grant them the pop they deserved, but it did not. As her new friends expressed sympathy with sad emotions, Judy thought about Gideon, she about his terrible ways and the news of her supposed redemption, culminating that the fox deserved better. Before her three friends could react, she wiped out a twenty-dollar bill that she had been saving for herself in addition to her father's one thousand and four hundred earnings.

She slammed the twenty down on the countertop, taking Jerry Jr. by surprise.

"Keep the change," she breathed dramatically.

Goofy, Donald and Sora, whose heads were still on the departing fox, were surprised by the bang on the countertop and turned just in time to see Jerry Jr. handing Judy the red jumbo pop, which was heavy at about a pound or two, so Sora and Judy carried it to the outside where the fox was met with a surprised smile. He took the popsicle in both arms while Sora went back inside for the much small sea salt popsicle. Sure enough it was the same size his Nobody Roxas had during his time alive and he was rewarded with each one at the end of his missions without getting fat. Perhaps it was the relentless running and fighting that kept his appearance slim and muscular, or that Nobodies did not gain weight in the similar manner that they didn't have hearts.

The fox however, was taking his sweet time with Judy.

"Officer, Mr. Panther, Duck and Dog, I cannot thank you enough for your generosity. Can I pay you back, even without my wallet?"

"No," Judy replied. "It's our treat. Really pisses me off to see people with such a backwards attitude towards foxes. I think you are a great dad and a real articulate fellow."

"That is a high praise," the fox said with his left hand on his heart. "But I find it rare to find someone so patronizing."

"Are you really that disliked in other circles?" Donald asked, squinting his left eye in a short moment of suspicion.

"Most, but not all, quacky."

"Donald Duck to you!"

As much as he felt disdain for such puerile names, it gave Judy and his two friend the opportunity to introduced themselves.

"Before I forget, I'm Judy Hopps."

She shook his free right hand with her left, while Sora and Goofy did the same.

"I am Sora."

"Goofy Goof."

"Nick Wilde. My boy's name is Finnick."

The name carried a tone of fame, but was coincidently normal by any standard. Judy leaned down to Finnick, the smaller fox, and looked into his innocent eyes, giving him the dream that she was likely not going to have for another range of years or so.

"So, you want to be an elephant when you grow up?"

Finnick quietly awaited her answer.

"You can be whatever you like to be."

As it comes for a meter maid to be fair towards children, Judy had been automatically equipped with a paper set of sticky badges fit for younger mammals. They were gold with the words "Junior ZPD Officer" on top of each other.

"Because this is Zootopia, where anyone can be anything…on the right side of the law."

Bemused, he gave her a toot. Sora even handed his sea salt pop to him.

"Want a lick?" he asked, but it seemed to him that Finnick had enough sugar for one day.

"You already have one ice cream and one is enough for anybody," Nick was saying to Finnick. "Now why don't you be a big boy and carry your jumbo pop with two hands so Daddy can have his hands free?"

He gave the large popsicle to Finnick who took it with both hands as instructed. The confection was obviously against his weight and he found it difficult to balance. His smile, hidden by his costume, was one of pain and the sweat that he tried not to break.

"Look at that happy birthday smile," Nick exclaimed, leaning down. "Now why don't you give them a bye-bye toot toot?"

Finnick tooted twice after one second with Judy's left arm miming the cord of a train whistle being pulled down.

"You have such a way with children," Goofy waved in a formal parting, as he had sensed that it was time to say good-bye.

"I know," Nick waved back. "Bye now."

"Good-bye!" the quartet sang in unison.

Judy skipped merrily away, rejuvenating her childhood at seeing Gideon Grey as quiet, well-mannered fox who tried to commit hazing or violence onto anybody. Donald, however, understood foxes as the most suspicious mammals he would encounter on his travels, especially after he, Sora and Goofy came into the company of one J. Worthington Foulfellow who said too much about Pleasure Island as a place where "every day was a holiday". Other foxes that they encountered were either naive or dangerous, even ones with black fur. Perhaps if he got to know Nick more than what met the eye to be uncovered, perhaps he could understand him better.

Two-ten had come. Judy, Sora, Donald and Goofy were back to parking duties at entrance of Savannah Central. By then Judy had marked her two hundred and sixty second ticket on a red roadster, when climbing onto the windshield, caught sight of fate in the reflection.

It was actually Finnick with his hood off, walking down the ramp of a van.

"Hey little toot toot!"

Judy went over, raising her right arm to say "hello". It faltered when she saw two jars of red liquid next to the van's ramp. When Sora's eyes looking for Judy saw this, his initial reaction was blood going into a third jar by a drainpipe to a four story apartment complex, but looking up on the roof, followed by Goofy and Donald, his eyes laid on Nick, hiding his eyes with sunglasses. He watched what was left of the jumbo pop, melting in the boiling sun spilling down from the roof titles and into the drain pipe. The stick where the gooey mass was dripping off from was balanced on two self-made v-shaped sticks, regularly used for tambourines and holding logs. He finished by tapping the stick three times, throwing it off the roof and sliding down the tiles to the drainpipe that he used for extra safety in heading downwards. Reaching the bottom, he carried the two jars, leaving the third one to be filled with the liquid.

 _What kind of a fox melts his own ice cream?_ Judy thought.

Nobody else seemed to notice him, and even if they did, they thought he was trying to waist it or even let himself burn in the heat of the sun. The van, a 1971 Dodge Tradesman, was red, orange and earth brown with silver steel doors, the rear printed with the artwork of a fox in a rock and roll band looking brave and stern as held his damsel, a thin wolf with white fur and a murky green gypsy costume, in his arms, fainted.

The van drove away down the street, and Judy's sight of _Finnick_ driving the car lead her to believe that he was either a smart baby or a dwarf-sized fox with a very good impression of fooling the unsuspecting crowds. Nick, sitting in the passenger seat, had his eyes closed in smelling the "taste of victory". Goofy watched the Tradesman's engine fire off a puff of smoke from its exhaust, walking up to an astounded Judy.

"Ya know, I wonder he plans to do with all that."

The answer was obvious to her.

"That is exactly what I plan to find out."

Following the Tradesman at a safe distance, Judy came to the cold, Imperial Russian-esque neighborhood in Tundratown with the Keyblade Glider in tow, where behind a snowbank, the four watched Nick and Finnick in an open, yet seemingly secluded area of snow below the steps leading to a street above them. The duo seemed to be in their own little plantation with ten rows of twenty spots for the jumbo pop turned red liquid, adding up to over two hundred in the almost neat little rows. The costume of Finnick left heavy foot prints, stepping back to place a small stick, apparently carved from the larger one at the base of the palm. Nick was already spilling some of the liquid into the top of the third row before Finnick and Judy's suspicions were running higher.

 _I wonder why he doesn't just use a freezer._

With a cart of forty-two "organic" pawpsicles for only two dollars, Nick dragged the tub of shaved ice all the way to the Lemming Brothers Bank downtown. The clock nearby struck five as he held his first pawpsicle in his right hand, and just in time for his own preparations. The directors, managers and other high ranking employees, lemmings in white and violet ties under their business suits, were coming out for lunch break when the sound of Nick's (at first) less-than-enthusiastic "Pawpsicles!" drew their attention.

"Get your pawpsicles!" he shouted, more stronger this time.

The fifth lemming drew out of line, his lips smacking at the juicy sight. He was followed by his associate and then another until a line of eighteen lemmings marched their way to the cart. They were easily gullible and it was their position based on wealth that made them an easy target for the slick Nick. The first one handed a two-dollar bill to the fox, his face staring at the popsicle before mindlessly munching on it. The rapid chomps became louder with each pawpsicle sold and began to quiet down when each lemming carefully tossed the sticks into three recycling bins of the slightest varying sizes.

This was Nick's own way of getting even with a duo of "gerbal jerks" who liked to run his tail over with their hot rod along with other animals who had one. Finnick, his eyes drooping, hauled the three connected carts of sticks with his left hand and up the ramp into the van, not suspecting Judy and her new comrades overlooking them on a bridge of green. She peered down, careful not to fall over.

 _What does he need those sticks for?_

In Little Rodentia, where a series of apartment complexes and mansions were being built with similar shaped sticks. Their foreman, tough but unsuspecting, did expect to see the large four stacks of lumber tied in army green bands as he drove his forklift through the layer for the foyer.

"Special delivery!"

The foreman named Monterey jumped out of his forklift and stood on his own stack to look at Nick and Finnick wearing yellow hard hats.

"What's with the color?"

"It's redwood," Nick said naturally. "Never mind the halves that are white. They got bleached in the sun."

 _Bleached in the sun my ass!_

Judy, lying in the grass behind two stalls and a trailer for the crew, gripped her fists in curving the earth with her own anger. After putting two and two together, she came to a realization that she had stood up for a… _con artist_. Sora was surprised, but not as surprised as Donald's loud thoughts.

"I thought there was something I didn't like about him," he muttered.

"Think I should bop him with my shield?" Goofy asked him.

Judy eyed both of them.

"I think I'll talk to him first."

Back in the alleyway of the downtown area, Nick was counting his bills. Forty dollars for Finnick and forty for himself came from the original total of eighty for even share.

"Way to work that diaper, big guy."

As he was saying this, Finnick skittered away, removing his suit by stripping down from the hood piece and pulling it down to reveal his much smarter suit of a black shirt with grey shorts.

"No kiss bye bye for Daddy?"

Nick's question was answered by a slam of the door, the spitting of the red pacifier and Finnick's deep voice of resentment.

"You kiss me tomorrow and I'll bite your damn face off."

He flipped open a pair of gold sunglasses in his right hand and played "Parlez Vous Rap" on the stereo.

"Chao," he said igniting the engine.

The departing van revealed Judy, Sora, Goofy and Donald, all had their arms crossed and eyes dissatisfied at their recent discovery. Judy spoke first.

"So…we stood up to you, got you your goddamned jumbo ice pop and you use it for the illegal distribution of selling ice cream without a permit as well as the unlawful use of ice cream sticks for construction material."

Nick's expression remained sly, confident, cheerful and lazy with his half-masted eyes.

"Relax sweetheart, they're in good condition. And it's called a hussle."

"Well if it's such a hustle," Sora mocked his words with the twiddling of his hands. "Then how long how you been running this operation?"

"For about a decade," Nick continued, taking the final lick of his pop.

But Judy wasn't quite finished with her discovery.

"I could also have you arrested for transporting undeclared commerce across borough lines and false advertising."

Nick pulled out a certificate from his right rear pocket with the words "Receipt of Declared Commerce" in a bold shade of midnight blue. On the back was the name "Permit" on the upper right corner, in the middle was the registration number "V2779", Class P and was scheduled to expire in July. He placed it in Judy's face, flipping both sides around.

"Permit. Receipt of declared commerce and I didn't falsely advertise anything."

"But it was you who told the mouse that pawpsicle sticks were redwood and that the parts that were still white got bleached in the sun!" Judy's accusing right index finger added to her voice of anger.

"That's right," Nick handed her his stick, having finished it. "Redwood with bleached sections. I have been doing this since the day I was born, Carrots."

Sora, Donald and Goofy could understand the common association between rabbits and carrots, but Judy, remembering her discussion of rabbits being called cute, found the name "carrots" as an offensive stereotype to rabbits.

"You are going to refrain from calling me 'carrots'. People of your class should address me as 'Officer Hopps'!"

Without even bothering to reference her actions as "police brutality" or "loitering", she held her left arm holding the stick back by twelve degrees, jolted it and the stick, released from her grasp, spun like a twirling knife, the red end hitting Nick's forehead above the glabella. He didn't mind the hit, since it was light as it fell to the sidewalk.

"My bad, I just naturally assumed you came from some little carrot-choked Podunk, no?"

"Podunk is in Deerbrooke County. I grew up in Bunnyburrow."

Nick observed Judy's desperation and strong attitude. She truly was a foolish young bunny to come all the way from the vast green lands with no insurance to her name (or so he assumed). It seemed to remind him of his own life as he told her details with matching hand expressions.

"Okay. Tell me if this story sounds familiar. Naïve little hick with good grades and big ideas decides, 'Hey, look at me, I'm gonna move to Zootopia, where predators and prey live in harmony and sing "Kumbaya"!' Only to find that we _don't_ all get along. And that dream of becoming a big city cop? Spoiler alert! She's a meter maid. And no one cares about her or her dreams. Soon enough those dreams die and our bunny sinks into an emotional and literal squalor, living in a box under a bridge. Till, finally, she has no choice but to go back home with that cute fuzzy-wuzzy tail between her legs to become... You're from Bunnyburrow, is that what you said? So how about a carrot farmer? That sound about right? So I suggest you be careful when dealing with the big guys, or it won't just be your dreams getting crushed."

He looked up at the threesome.

"What about you three? What's your story?"

Sora explained the situation in brief detail.

"We were supposed to be visiting our friend Donald's relatives in Duckburg, but thanks to Judy, we got caught up in this."

"See?" Nick's head went back to Judy's. "Dreams can sometimes ruin lives and in your case, you just disrupted their lives by forcing them to tag along with you."

Reality was not into crashing into Judy, it was making her more defiant.

"NOBODY TELLS ME WHAT I CAN'T OR CAN NOT BE! ESPECIALLY NOT SOME FUCKING FOX WHO NEVER TRIED TO BE ANYTHING MORE THAN A GODDAMNED PAWPSICLE HUSTLER!"

He observed her again, this time trying to deal with matters more calmly.

"Okay, listen. Everybody comes to Zootopia thinking they change the world be anything they want to be," he said sweetly before going sour. "But the truth is, you can't. You can only be what _they_ want you to be and some have even committed suicide over this to make a point."

His right index finger pointed down at her, then himself.

"Sly fox, retarded bunny."

Now she was even more offended. Donald covered his beak, Sora curled both of his fists and Goofy's nose blew a strong whiff of a "humph!" before covering his ear's at Judy's boiling rage.

"I AM NOT A RETARDED BUNNY!"

"And I'll bet Sora here is not a real panther."

Frightened into thinking that his secret had been discovered, Sora quivered.

"That was a joke," Nick frowned. "But you will never be a real cop."

Then hands behind his back, he struck off on foot down the alley and when he was about six meters away from her, he called back.

"You are cute meter maid though! Maybe even a supervisor one day, so hang in there!"

Judy did not wait until Nick was out of sight. She just groaned and turned to Sora, who had recovered from the joke.

"I almost thought he knew….where I came from."

"You mean the islands?" she asked.

"Yes. And that I am from another world."

"Then maybe it is true. You aren't a real panther."

Without saying another word, Judy and her retinue returned to the police station. Chief Bogo congratulated his officers for their hard work, but berated Judy for missing several cars that went without tickets. When she explained about Nick, his profession and several gratuitous details, those being his permit if such, he told her that he had known Nick before and had redeemed himself by just doing his job correctly. He then thanked the three off-worlders for their assistance and send them away with Judy.

"In fifty years," Bonkers told her before she went out the door. "You may just get promoted."

But fifty years would seem like an eternity to Judy Hopps, a rabbit whose high hopes had been wasted by those had more power than her.

It was late afternoon when she finished, to be precise eight thirty-eight p.m., at the dark apartment complex. Dharma had gone to the movies and aside from her neighbors and her three visitors, there was no else there. Sora, reeling from the shock of Judy finding out about his heritage and his background, fell face down on the bed. Donald and Goofy, sharing simultaneous yawns dropped to the floor from a long day. Judy did not mind them there, as she set her note book and iPhone down, clicking the music button on her alarm clock with her left index finger. The music that followed was "Everybody Hurts" by R.E.M., followed by Eric Carmen's "All to Myself", then "You can't do nothing right baby" sung by Madisen Ward and finally Winston Marshall's "I'm a Loser". The songs only reflected Nick's words, urging her to turn the radio off and head sluggishly to the microwave to cook a carrot dinner.

She watched it turn with the surface of the paper bobbing slightly from the heat, representing the circle of life in a way that she never thought of: A food chain of predator and prey that brought her mind back to the play, when she was an innocent bunny who thought that Zootopia was a magical world that didn't look anything like a normal city with its pros and cons with crime and grime. The bell of the microwave brought her back to the present and she removed the Carrots for One dinner from the microwave, setting it down on the wooden table. She opened it and a cloud of steam faded away to reveal a poor, shriveled carrot that looked nothing compared to the box due to an accidental mix up from the manufacturing firm. Again having faced the negative effects of false advertising, she tossed it into the trash and began to re-think her life.

A ring from her phone seemed to be the only salvation that would have cheered her up in the form of her mother and father. Unsure, but certainly determined to prevent her parents from knowing the truth, her right thumb pressed the accept button in green.

"Hey, Mom! Hey Dad!"

On the other line was Bonnie in a one-piece dress that was colored in light turquoise, her father seemed to be wearing the same old overalls and cap, not having changed except for his shirt of yellow and some green triple stripes.

"Hi sweetheart!"

"Hey there, Jude the Dude! How was your first day on the force?"

"It was real great!" Judy sang-sung.

"Everything you ever hoped?"

Bonnie's face was desperate and filled to the brim with worry. It seemed to have left Judy on a standstill, wondering if the truth was something that needed to be told.

"And more!" she fibbed, resuming her gleeful façade. "Everybody is so nice and I feel like I'm making a difference."

"I heard that predators in the big city still eat rabbits!"

The screen turned to the old voice in the background, wearing a brown suit and glasses to go with his elderly appearance. Judy's paternal grandfather, Pop-Pop, was the widowed husband of the grandmother who died at a hundred and three and even though he was thirteen years younger than his late wife, the wise nature of his mind had turned into a trivial senility. Bonnie was able to calm him down though.

"That's offensive, Pop-Pop."

"WELL YOU'RE DAMN RIGHT! IT'S NOT OFFENSIVE, IT IS BARBARIC!"

"Is there anything wrong?"

Judy was able to keep the phone at a vantage point to prevent her parents from seeing her suit hung on the coat rack near the door.

"Nothing is wrong, Mom."

Her tone was starting to lose its power and her ears began to lower, it was unfortunate that Bonnie had to notice this.

"There is something wrong, your ears are droopy. You want me to come over?"

"NO!" Judy cried in defense. "I'm good! I'm good, I'm just…tired from all this, chasing around and fighting criminals and, even making new friends."

Bonnie's content tone resumed.

"Oh, that's wonderful. Did they give you a big fancy police car?"

"Yes, no one else has anything like it."

"Good for you, Bun-Bun. I didn't think that you would make it. It's just so great that you are doing something that I never thought a bunny could do. I guess what all you needed was a chance to prove yourself. I am proud of you. You keep making chances for yourself, Bun-Bun."

Judy smiled. Her mother's cure had worked. All she could hear from her father before going switching off was.

"Thanks for the check!"

Setting the iPhone upside down again, Judy slumped in her chair, looking up at the ceiling and not minding if the Oryx-Antlerson started quarreling again. Her room was quiet with Donald and Goofy's loud snores and Sora only let a few snores out from his nose and began to draw in a lump of breath followed by a round of quiet ones from his throat. But it was then that she reminded herself of an old age quote.

"Tomorrow is another day."

Elsewhere, in St. Canard, another party was also interested in finding the missing mammals.

Darkwing Duck had been sitting in front of his computer, typing in the possible names of the persons in question, having done this for the last three minutes before going out on patrol.

"Polar Ice Corporation…Swine Corporation…"

Another thought came to the head hidden by his fedora.

"Macawber's Mushrooms?"

Launchpad and Gosalyn, who had been swordfighting nearby, stopped at the sound of the name which seemed loud enough by the tone of Darkwing's voice.

"What's this about mushrooms?" Launchpad was the first to ask. "We just had dinner."

"This lady I met named Morgana may have some history with this Moloculo Macawber guy. They may be the founders, if not directors of Macawber's Mushrooms. And to ensure the authenticity of this connection, I'm gonna have to have company with them tonight."

He left the chair and walked over to the Ratcatcher.

"And once you're done with the old man," Gosalyn suggested teasingly. "I'll bet his girlfriend, daughter, whoever she may be is gonna take you out on a date."

Darkwing was three steps away from the cycle when he stopped, a sly look coming into his lips, then he rotated his head at the exact degree of limit where he could look over his right shoulder. His reply was a low one, slow with careful.

"You think you know every little detail about my life, do you?"

Launchpad crossed his arms and so did Gosalyn, taking in the words with the implication of rudeness. To get even, Launchpad had his own response of suggestive consciousness.

"Well, I have been in your employ since day one, Gosalyn has been your daughter since the Taurus Bulba incident and we always know what is best for you. You should let yourself have a girlfriend every once in a while."

"I think you're wrong."

And so he said. He hopped into the Ratcatcher, activated the engine and a buzzing roar brought the vehicle to life. It shuddered and vibrated under the immense power that was used to generate the horsepower. Without a hint of a slow beginning, the Ratcatcher sped away from the tower and towards the city where the eminence-purple clad vigilante could begin his investigation work.


	5. Baloo

Kit Cloudkicker was a most unusual bear cub in many ways. For one thing, he liked cloud-surfing and did not approve of getting his pilot's license until _after_ he turned seventeen. He also happened to be a navigator for Baloo von Bruinwald XIII of Cape Suzette. Occasionally donning a green sweater with an azure and red rimmed baseball cap faced backwards, he often did his homework whenever he felt like doing it, in his room when exhausted and jaded without Baloo having to force him into doing it. He lay on his stomach, reading _History of Zootopia Volume 1_ with his pen and notebook propped against the pillow, coming to an interesting paragraph that read:

"Carnivores (more commonly known as predators) were particularly accused of magic in medieval times, which incubated fear into the hearts of the already frightened prey. The prey were not very good at recognizing witchcraft and on the occasion that they did catch one, the animal in question would escape if she or he had claws to cut the ropes that bound them to the stake. This was provoked by the use of chains and filing of such claws for further executions."

Kit put his pen between his teeth and began to write on his paper. The paragraph reminded him that Baloo, his employer and closet girlfriend Rebecca Cunningham and her six-year-old daughter Molly were predators, but they did not have a medieval attitude towards prey. The three were the closest family he had after the death of his parents, for they had been murdered by the most feared sky pirate for ten years, Don Carnage. While his parents had chosen to book a cruise on Scrooge McDuck's latest luxury zeppelin, _Hindentanic_ , Carnage saw a good opportunity to strike at the upper class passengers with either death or captivity, either way marauding them of whatever assets they carried on their person. Some faced injury at the hands of his nine pirate band, but it was his sword that struck Kit's father in the abdomen, followed by a fatal stab in the right breast to Mrs. Cloudkicker.

The then one-year-old Kit was spared when Carnage, out of pity and realization of his own strength, saw the baby as a protégé, took him away from the crime scene of a cabin and in a trice, summoned the crew back to his self-built airship, the _Iron Vulture_ , which spanned over a thousand feet and could reach a total speed of one hundred and fifty miles per hour.

For the next twelve years, Kit had spent a life of independence, reliability and abuse at the mixed emotions toward him from Carnage and his crew, teaching him the many ways survival like how to steal, how to fly a white crescent shaped board for cloud-surfing and pounce the victim at the right moment. Following his twelfth birthday, after the lack of celebration due to many victorious crimes, Carnage had unwisely revealed to an underappreciated Kit that it was he who had taken the lives of his parents and planned to make him his successor of the _Vulture_. This information, along with his increasing bigotry towards Carnage after years of balanced neglect and care in the unconventional parental way, Kit made one last act of thievery by stealing a box of jewels from Carnage as quick as the fox he would never be, hitchhiking his way to freedom via air-foil with a dark brown rope attached to a cargo plane and made his way to a tropical themed tavern dubbed "Louie's Place" after it's orangutan owner, where he met Baloo.

The sky pirates soon pinpointed his trajectory, which led Baloo and Kit to escape on his floatplane the _Sea Duck_ , a Conwing L-16 intent for cargo purposes. Learning of Kit's plight and the fact that he wanted to be a pilot just like Baloo, the older bear took the cub in as a surrogate son following a series of adventures involving the confrontation between his former guardian in his attempt to burn down all of Cape Suzette with a lightning gun, mostly attacking the citizens who refused to submit their money and jewelry to him.

Kit had come to breakfast the next morning in Rebecca's house to find the three bears sitting around the kitchen table. They were watching the television; which Rebecca had purchased after an increase in her salary. With orange fur, 5'5" long brown hair, deep carmine pink sweater, Egyptian blue jeans and having made a scandalous divorce to her husband Henry at thirty-five years old, Rebecca was seen as a typical beauty by the lower class citizens of Zootopia, while those of her station, the upper class, saw her as nothing more than a regular beauty. It even attracted Baloo in his own affections towards her, but she detested the way he shirked his responsibilities and his cringing pet-name for her "Beckers", but it soon grew on her. As managing director and owner of the business firm Higher for Hire, she could supply any plane to her customers for a reasonably expensive price.

Molly, her cute brown eyes contrasting with her baby blue overalls and pale pink blouse, ate her cereal loudly. She never complained immaturely about her mother not spending time with her and had her own superheroine fantasy of "Danger Woman", after the protagonist of the eponymous children's television program. Whenever she travelled or even played with Kit, she liked to bring along her toy doll Lucy, and it was fortunate for Baloo and Rebecca that in some of their adventures, Molly was an intelligent child for her age, so intelligent that she was able to outwit several of her enemies. As much as she loved ice cream (mostly banana splits), she was not afraid to speak her mind as she enjoyed the adventures in the sky that took up most of her spare time, but not enough to look into her future as an adult.

Kit sat in-between Molly and Baloo, a large grey bear who habitually wore a royal red cap and a tan suit as part of his pilot's uniform. Far from using their voices to greet Kit with a "hello" and a "good morning", everyone was silent. Rebecca's eyes darted toward him in a second before she resumed taking a sip of the coffee cup in her left hand, Baloo smiled at him as he bit into his toast and Molly was too busy eating into the remnants of her bowl before she finally acknowledged him.

On the television was reporter Webra Walters from Duckburg, hallway through the disappearances of certain predators over the past two months.

"…and all over Zootopia there have been reports of alleged kidnappings or even murders of the following citizens who had mysteriously disappeared, most of the incidents having been concentrated outside the city. The police had been recently informed of an otter gone missing in Sahara Square and prepared to launch an investigation as soon as possibile."

"Why don't they act now?" Baloo asked as if he was talking to the television.

He shot a left sideways look at Kit, who nodded in agreement. Molly was staring at Webra, trying to comprehend the news into her mind. But being a six-year-old, kidnappings and other criminal offenses were of little concern to her unless she encountered one on her travels with Baloo.

Rebecca, who was a true workaholic, whipped around and kept her gaze out the window. Baloo knew that she would simply love to participate the search effort if a reward was involved, and making large figures of coinage was her top priority. Taking her eyes off the television to look back at her laptop for at least a few seconds, she spoke out.

"When will they learn that these people are most likely dead?"

After studying a history of famous persons who disappeared while in-flight, Rebecca could automatically assume that any person who had "disappeared" in her mind was likely to be dead.

"That's how it is, Becky," Baloo said to her. "But I'd better get going. I promised Wildcat that he and I would get to spend more time with Louie."

Kit, whose thoughts had been in the clouds with the memory of his cloud surfing days under Don Carnage's tutelage, was brought down to earth by Baloo's words.

"Louie's coming over?"

Louie the orangutan owner of his self-named pub was also a well-known friend of Baloo's. Even though he was not a blood royal of the orangutans who ruled the island up until the late-nineteenth century, his family had come from a long line of lower class servants who actually worked with the royal family until the abolishment of monarchy on the Isle of Naboombu led Zootopia and its remaining islands to be placed under governmental control. He never stayed long on the mainland, due to the increasing business of his tavern, but each of his chronicled tales with Baloo remained in the bear's mind.

Prior to meeting Kit, Louie worked from place to place with an entourage of friends, performing scat numbers, torch songs and other forms of music in various nightclubs, but was met with negative responders who felt that Louie was just "too dated", but he still received at least thirty dollars from patrons for his best efforts. Choosing to set up an independent establishment on his home island, he found a more lucrative way of additional profits when pilots on all sides of the mainland came to his tavern for natural drinks and some meals mixed with fruits and vegetables from the island's resources while shipping goods. His relationship with the pilot Louise L'amour, made him closer to the hedgehoppers that visited his party-going tavern in ways that made him a celebrity amongst other musicians and bartenders who knew him well before Louie's Place was built.

"Louie's gonna be here for a week," Baloo told Kit. "Now of course I want you to be on your best behavior and I expect courtesy towards our guest."

The last thing Kit wanted was to be treated like a twelve-year-old who was incapable of handling himself following his life with Don Carnage's pirate band. Molly withdrew her gaze from the television and looked over at Baloo, who was excited at meeting Louie for the first time in almost two months since his last visit.

"First," Baloo said, "I suggest we don't mention anything of what we saw on the TV to Louie. Who knows if he'll be next?"

"I think you're overacting, Papa Bear," Kit said though a serious tone of using his foster father's nickname.

"Maybe you're right Little Britches," Baloo's voice seemed slightly relaxed. "But with fourteen people missing, I don't know who trust anymore other than you three."

Rebecca sat there, at first misunderstanding Baloo's words and taking it as a form of accusation as she stared at him. In the three seconds that followed, she finally understood and by now had finished her plate.

"Well, I'd better be off," said Baloo, getting on to his feet. "Want to come for the ride, Kit?"

"I suppose," he said turning back to Rebecca and Molly. "You two want to come?"

"No thank you," said Molly sweetly.

Rebecca ticked her daughter's ears playfully.

"And right you are. You've got to look smart for Louie, don't you?"

"Yep."

Baloo took Kit's back by his left paw and two male bears walked out the door to where the _Sea Duck_ was sitting by the dock.

Wildcat, the feline mechanic sitting on a wooden stool nearby, was a child at heart with a pale blue mechanic's coveralls, a maroon visor and earth brown hair wrapped in a ponytail. His position as the third member of the Higher for Hire delivery team put him in a long-standing friendship with Baloo eighteen years ago when ursine pilot ran his own air service. Proficient, good-natured and with a high salary second only to Baloo's on the HFH crew, Wildcat was responsible for modifying the _Sea Duck_ into a floatplane in the alternative event of the aircraft landing in the sea rather than crashing into it, should anything hazardous occur in-flight. Wildcat's constant tinkering with the plane, among the details of the passenger doors and control panels, kept the _Sea Duck_ in tip-top shape. Whenever anyone asked him about the secret to his talent, all he could say was.

"E-magination, with a capital E."

When he saw Baloo and Kit walking towards him, he stood up from his stool, trying to look professional after a five-minute break of constantly adjusting the plane.

"Ready, Baloo?"

The bears faced him as if it were a rescue mission.

"Ready."

Ten minutes later, the _Sea Duck_ had already soared out of the dock and towards the private island. Kit, now feeling thoroughly relieved from his homework, looked out the co-pilot's window for any other sign of land. But he did not have to wait too long since the plane had glided softly towards Louie's Place and came to a gentle stop on an ocean of glass. In no time at all, Louie had seen the plan was rushing right over to the dock with a brown suitcase in his left hand. His right hand was waving riotously in the air, almost fearing that he would miss his ride. But Baloo saw him, fortunately, and he knew better than to leave one of his associates behind on purpose.

"Hey everybody!"

In no time at all, the doorbell was ringing twice in Rebecca's house, succeeded by the droning sounds of a plane landing and footsteps making their way to the door. Rebecca went over to answer it, pulling the door open with the grace of a hostess.

On the threshold stood the stout-statured Louie, wearing a straw fedora, an ocean blue shirt with five large lime green spots and a pink Hawaiian necklace made of cerise hibiscuses. He handed his suitcase to Rebecca, who took it upstairs as Louie made his way over to Molly. After a quick hug, Baloo, Kit and Wildcat went past them for the kitchen, preparing for tonight's dinner: the usual tropical foods of orange smoothies, avocado tacos and mixed fruit all purchased by Louie before leaving the island. Had it been Louie's birthday, the supply of food would be larger and Rebecca would have to end up baking a banana flavored cake.

Louie planted a large kiss on Molly's right cheek, slipping a $20 bill into her left hand. He called it a sign of appreciation when she asked him and headed towards the dining table. When he got there, he watched Baloo mixing the vegetables in a pale violet bowl, smiling jovially as he tried to impress his cooking skills.

"Any drinks, Louie?" the bear asked him.

"I will have some of the orange smoothies before I move on to the margaritas."

At dinner, Louie had been supplied with three bananas topped with blueberries and a slice of mango chopped in six pieces for each person sitting at the table. Kit winced slightly as he sat next to Molly, watching Louie swallow the mango slice whole. He did so with the proper table manners of napkins and the careful use of his mouth and hands. Rebecca wanted a perfectly clean table and a floor to preserve the reputation of her upper class status, least of all wanting the inconvenience of paying for a cleaning crew.

"Who's looking after the bar?" she asked, breaking the silence.

"I locked it all tight," said Louie after wiping his mouth clean. "Couldn't bear, no pun intended, to leave it unguarded without my latest security system."

"You mean like red lasers?" asked Kit.

"Not exactly," Louie replied with a sporty grin. "I got a lock from a cop named Francine. Mighty big elephant she was. Back in March last year, I did her a favor by watching over a crook she arrested while she went on patrol. When he tried to leave, I simply pounded him on the head. He had a very ungrateful tone and he was a predator, a tiger to be exact."

Wildcat, who was foolish enough to believe that Louie could have been referring to him, took slower bites on his slice of the mango.

"They just don't understand the true feelings of predator and prey, that's what's wrong. He would have clawed me to death if I didn't back in spite of the handcuffs placed on him. I gotta say, that tiger is no better than our very own Wildcat."

"Better than anyone else you hired?" Wildcat's tone was that pain.

"Not you, Wildcat, that was a different tiger. He pretty owned an electronics store in Savannah Square before it got out of business. Not really the type of guy who could pay his taxes, or rent, I think he must have been a drunk."

Wildcat set aside his glass of Louie's self-made fruit drink of grape juice while orangutan set his eyes on Rebecca. As friendly as he was, his scruffy personality and the intensity of prejudicial acts towards predators and prey made him blurt out dark hints of what made a mammal's personality so unsatisfactory.

"You know, Becky, with all these disappearances happening recently, somebody's trying make life hell for all them predators. If there is something rotten on the inside, it's either two ways: One, how he or she is bred. Two, there is something wrong with them and it's not from their family...it comes from something else."

Baloo tried to concentrate on his food, but then he looked down, poked the fork into a blueberry and made direct eye contact with Louie. The purity of the blueberry's color and condition was a sign of all order breaking down into a slowly impending chaos.

"This is so unlike you, Louie. Usually you're quite the party animal."

Louie reached for his glass of orange margarita and sipped it quietly.

"That's horseshit, Baloo. Even a lot of party animals tend get gritty sometimes."

Upon hearing Louie's use of a profane insult, Rebecca darted her head at him, squealing.

"Louie!"

But Molly had already covered her ears upon hearing the word "horseshit". She did not remove her hands until the room fell back into silence for four seconds. Kit looked at Louie suspiciously, deciding to skip his Krakatoa Special sundae which he and Molly had favorited so often, but he stayed at the table just in case his mind was changed.

It seemed apparent that the alcohol within the margarita was urging Louie to shape himself into an aggressive simian, talking of nothing but the faults of predators, prey and a story of their many civil wars that could fill a book. As he ate a fourth scoop of the Krakatoa Special he made five minutes later, his eyes met Kit's, then Baloo's and finally Rebecca's, who was sipping her coffee in the same position early in the day.

"I always enjoy a Krakatoa Special to fit my proper size," he said smacking his lips. "But if you try let that boy cuss you out like some prey who's willing to fight back against a predator, I'd whip him into shape if I you for the sake of discipline."

Baloo's eyes widened. Louie's words were absolutely irrational, and the growing effect of the alcohol was making him sound like a crude ape with a discourteous tongue.

"What is with you meddling in other people's affairs?" Kit was outraged as he shook his hands out of annoyance.

"I have nothing against you, Kit," Louie tried to remember himself. "You've grown up to become a predator who knows how to keep a civil voice. But the fact that you spent the first years of your life with a _fox_ is one thing I absolutely despise, 'cause they're the worst."

Kit's memories of Don Karnage were forced into his mind, remembering the balanced abuse and treatment he received. The sky pirate's attempts at "whipping" him into becoming a professional and the murder of his parents were too atrocious to think about, but with Louie having brought it back up, he had to address his anger towards his former "foster father" for the second time in four months. He was bursting to say that he had loathed Karnage on the inside since the last time they met.

"I'm glad you know what kind of a person Don Karnage turned out to be, because he's the real bastard."

Instead of correcting Kit on the precision of his vocabulary, Rebecca was unafraid to speak her mouth about Louie's subjects.

"At least my Molly hasn't turned out to be a bad egg so far. She's absolutely perfect…"

She faced her daughter, directly with love in her eyes.

"…right Molly?"

The female cub nodded, smiling shyly as she tried to ignore Louie's aggressive words.

"Some predators who end up in the best of families, like a prey family, end up eating the prey and take all the money for themselves. _That's_ how they end up becoming all sorts of wastrels and criminals—"

"They're not worth it."

Baloo's words were strong. He was hoping to change the subject before Louie spoke out again.

"At least Kit didn't turn out to be one of them."

Kit smiled at Louie and himself, thankful for not ending up in Karnage's employ for the rest of his life. Rebecca resumed her words, focusing the subject on her husband.

"If there is one reason why I broke up with Henry is because he was wealthy, and arrogant, and a predator, but on the other hand he helped me through business school and I couldn't bear to see him act so insensitive to the prey."

She almost regretted her words, thinking back on the process of publishing the details of her divorce in the society column. Rebecca slumped her chair and drew a deep sigh.

"Everything I think about just crumbles. And Henry was squandering half of my money on himself. I'll bet he's in a bordello right now, getting down with some younger bear or even Gazelle herself."

This gave Baloo an opportunity to change the subject. Yet his concern seemed like a poor excuse in his mind.

"I hope nothing's wrong with Gizelle. I don't think she was feeling well two weeks ago."

"There's nothing wrong with her," Louie blurted. "She's a picture of health. Rumor has it that she married a tall tiger who ended up becoming one of her dancers."

As Louie rambled on, Baloo felt that his friend's rumor was simply false. There were laws regarding inter-species marriage to prevent scandals or odd outcomes of producing children that ended up with splicing results, like the inhumane combination of a polar bear's head with an otter's tail. "Puppy kittens", which seemed to be something of an internet hoax, was another reason why even unevolved pets could not espouse with another species unless if he or she was one of their own. Taking no more, Baloo stood up from his chair, causing a short squeal from the legs and asking.

"May Kit and I be excused?"

Louie went silent while Rebecca, Molly and Wildcat stared at him, content and pleased with not having to hear what Louie was about to say next. But his right hand took Kit's left and they made their way to the door, with Baloo expressing frustration on his face.

"Why don't we go out?" he quietly, stopping at the door to face Kit, who was trying to understand Baloo's emotions.

"Out where?"

"Anyplace is better than here."

And they left for the door, taking his cap with him. He pulled the door open forcefully, and it closed all the way, in a leisurelier pace than when it had been opened. As they walked past Wildcat's boathouse, Kit had seen Baloo's eyes of rage that he had not seen since he had pretended to rejoin Karnage's league of air pirates back on Pirate Island, a volcanic safe haven for Don Karnage's crowd among other sky pirates that he didn't even know of. But soon, he was front of the copilot's door the _Sea Duck_ , and he let himself in, not letting his eyes fall on either Baloo or the unheeded reaction of the door closing behind him. His head did not turn back over his left shoulder as it should have done, but the buzzing of the plane's engines brought him out of his wearisome stare of distraught.

And without saying a word, the _Sea Duck_ took off into sky towards…who knows where.


	6. Foxy Felon

Nicholas Piberius Wilde woke up to the sun of early morning through the window of his basement apartment in Savannah Central. His entire room was dingy, dismal and above all dilapidated beyond compare to anything else in a "city of dreams". He always slept in a drawer for a bed and the underside of his kitchen served as a popular hub for chasing cockroaches. Yawning, he prepared to rise, ready to start his day of con jobs like selling alcoholic ice cream to minors. He couldn't understand why he couldn't get an official job like running an indoor amusement park or one of those places where people were well dressed in blue suits from the time of the Great Catsby, but the history of his father's tailoring business proposal proved otherwise: an overly optimistic pitch that ended with immediate failure.

The only other area of rain he encountered was his shower and it took him three minutes to get washed, brush his teeth and dress himself in the Hawaiian shirt that was as green as the apples on a summer apple tree. Now it was May, and summer was at its beginning. Soon afterwards he would be switching into something warm like an itchy coat of black as the many deaths winter can bring from hypothermia. The one thing he did have for warmth was his old fashioned table lamp in the kitchen, that was a simple bulb under a white plain cover. It had belonged to his mother for as long he could remember in those days in that Victorian house left by his great-great grandparents.

Nick had lived for the first nineteen years of his life in that house and there was something so pleasant, so warming about that house that made him long for it. But for some reason that even he could not figure out, he felt like he was glued to his apartment, unsure of going back. At the same time as a grown fox who was pushing thirty, he was in great need of independence and he willing to just prove that to his parents before they would pass on of their natural causes. At least he found it satisfying to have Finnick as his roommate, the two of them having been friends since elementary school. He too had been sleeping, on the floor, and moaning loudly.

"Nick, do you know what time it is?"

Nick sighed and checked the clock. Finnick was always a difficult fox to deal with in the mornings. But, making no issue out of it, announced it to him.

"Seven thirty."

"I didn't even know it was that early," the smaller fox mumbled. "You haven't been doing nightly operations, have you?"

"No and I was hoping for less traffic with this heat. Lots of people don't care to walk when it's like a hundred degrees outside."

"So what? It's not like anybody's just asking for a sun-bathe."

Nick could hear the pathetic undertones creeping into Finnick's voice. It welled into his ears and seemed to smack his hearing hard enough to represent his own expression that he was refusing to wear the elephant suit again.

"I told you how good it would be if we did the pawpsicles yesterday. If it hadn't been for that cop, the panther, the duck and the dog we would be eighty dollars short of a mule. We could have stolen the jumbo pop even without my wallet while the parlor was closed and then replaced it with a very good lookalike. At least we made our money thanks to those four, but if I didn't know any better, I'd say you hated working for me."

It felt doable to consider this as a coincidence, given the transaction of the jumbo pop and Finnick's hostile attitude towards him.

"Do I?" Finnick's voice was copacetic, yet the baritone nature of it screamed "stranger danger" into young minds. "I and you have been together since we were kids, but that doesn't make me your adopted son, brother or any other relative you think I really am. If sucking on a binky and wearing a baby suit makes you sick, why don't you try it for once."

"Then that would make us even. But think of it this way, Finnick, I never had the gumption to get married or even do some other things because I am fox and this is punishment for _both_ of us."

"Both of us?"

"That's right, Finnick, we're bachelors for life."

He wanted to shout a long list of expletives at him, but he was too tired and it was early for anything other than breakfast. Because of many things he had told himself over and over again, he was nothing more than a predator who could have been legally removed from his parents if he treated others with primitive mannerisms that had vanished a million years ago. The other, more fun loving side of him became enmeshed by the faults of his other relatives, some who he was no longer able to remember.

"I could outcon every other artist in town and we'd still be the same. But I don't know if I feel like doing con jobs for the rest of my life. Maybe once I have enough money I could retire and open up Dad's tailor business."

"Nick, some dreams are meant to be shattered. Didn't you tell me last night that you told the bunny that her dreams could never come true?"

He couldn't put his eyes on Finnick when it came to discussing private matters. Instead he walked over to the stove and maybe if he pretended to ignore him they would change the subject.

But he didn't.

"Well did you?"

"Yes, Finnick, I did," said Nick just five feet away from the stove. "I just wanted her to face reality, with her saying she was from Bunnyburrow. I mean I think she was from Bunnyburrow. Admittedly, she looked like she could take on anything, even the bigger mammals."

"I don't know why you didn't bother to just turn her away with force. It would have put a lot of sense into her."

"I was trying to avoid being violent like I always do. Sometimes, words can speak louder than actions."

"There's a lot more to that than words, Nick. You hate the prey, but don't see them as threats that need to die. I think you're afraid of 'em, aren't you?"

"I wish I could improve their minds," Nick began to work on the stove. "In fact, if we get enough money, we could just open a theme park for predators to get wild. I think I'll call it 'Wild Times'."

"That sounds like a newspaper publisher," Finnick scoffed. "You should try thinking of a more regular name like 'Zootopia Amusement Park'."

"Already been done and too generic. What about a library for predators only? One with a section for psychology."

"Psychology is a subject studied by many predators. I'll never forget that time in college when I actually thought I could learn psychology and with you giving me the baby act, I think I might even develop a split-personality."

"To hear you say such things," Nick was getting the bread out of the toaster on a plate. "Is one reason why I like to have you as a roommate, two geniuses are better than one half-wit."

Finnick finally stood up.

"Half-wit?!"

Nick tried to tranquilize his forthcoming anger.

"I didn't mean it that way. I just feel like if things keep going, I may not reach a higher place in life compared to this dump. It's what they'll call me and I'll always be: a thin predator who acts like a mamma's boy."

It was deafening him as he sat down at the table. The memory of such event made his throat close as he attempted to block it out of his mind. In a second, he would have cried, but he sucked the tear in and took it…like a man.

"I know what you mean," Finnick could almost read his mind. "I may be tough, but I treat my friends with a civil tongue as long as they don't provoke me. They think that they like to kill you just because you're a predator. But when one door closes, another one opens. That door closed a long while back, but there is what is and then there is what we would like it to be."

Nick stared at him.

"Are you serious?"

Finnick walked over to the table, having half of the toast that Nick provided him with. The red fox didn't trust himself to believe such random words, but what if they were a sign of untold wisdom? Perhaps, the long days of masquerading as an infant were taking its toll on his sanity. If he kept on listening to him, an epiphany would reach the dark caverns of his mind and unlock an increase in his intelligence. Nick kept munching on his toast until the very last piece when he saw his idea in the center of his mind.

"I'll tell you what, we'll do more of these acts for a year, and then maybe I can find someone else to play the part of the baby."

"What about what I said?"

"I'll figure it out at some point in my life, but right now, you gotta get your play suit on. We're still going out are we?"

Without looking back, Finnick was in a stroller, wearing the suit again and they were out the door to another round of con jobs. Perhaps, if they ran into Judy and her friends again, they would have to be stealthier next time.


	7. Big Trouble in Little Rodentia

Duke Weaselton seemed like the very specimen of criminal birth who judging by his undershirt and blue shorts with red in white lines was living in an apartment he could not afford. He thought of playing football with some neighborhood kids and providing them with a hot lunch of meatloaf, but they thought he looked like a serial killer and he wasn't much of a cook. He was more of a _crook_ , who stole anything required by the services of anyone who needed his sly skills and sharp tongue, sourced from watching too many crime films and TV shows, maybe even novels about psychological and criminal thrillers. Although he was elusive, he was unable to escape the many claws and knives that gave him a few scars and bent his whiskers.

He was sitting there, watching the kids from his couch when the telephone rang. He picked it up into his left ear.

"Hello?"

The line that came from the other side sounded very… _clownish_ and pedophilic…perhaps weird.

"Hellooooo, Dukey."

The sound of it nearly made Duke cringe.

"Quackers?"

"Yes, it's me, old Quackers from St. Canard. How are things going in the field of pirating DVDs?"

"Fine," Duke gulped. "And what about your toys? Are they…selling well?"

"That's just what I wanted to talk to you about. Someone's tried to make off with my supply of night howlers. I don't know why they couldn't just take one from a store, but one might think that they were trying be…discreet. You haven't been stealing from me, have you?"

Threatening undertones came from "Quackers'" voice caused Duke to quiver. Holding his tank top with his right hand, he stuttered at first, then regained composure.

"No. I haven't."

"You know what happens to double-crossers, Dukey, death by toy is just one of my… _HOBBIES!_ "

Then the voice let out a crazed cackle that was slow with momentum, climaxing with some small giggles at the end before it turned darker than before.

"Now listen up, _Wiesel_ , you're gonna get me a new batch of night howlers since the ones I've planted have probably gone stale by now. So why don't you tell your landlord that someone got put in the hospital and you need to be there for them. And let's keep this between us, shall we? Bad things happen to dickwads who squeal. Capisce?"

Duke nodded slowly. The laugh had taken a lot out of him and was being etched in his memory over the fear of what could happen should he fail. He would rather face jail than meet death in the criminal underworld.

"Yes."

"Good, see you."

The line hung up.

Duke knew that now was not the time to laze around like a couch potato, there was a job that needed to be finished. Immediately, he swept off his feet and headed straight for the elevator, waiting impatiently for it to take him to the ground floor and ran out before the landlord, a muskrat with a cupid's arrow tattoo on his right cheek, could demand his rent. He knew the perfect store to find flowers and he had always been its "number one customer" there.

On Cherry Street, Judy began day two of meter maid with some angry feedback. A moose in a purple cardigan who owned a gold Cord roadster was shouting to her with a snort.

"That was thirty fucking seconds over!"

Judy's tired expression could not comply with his anger, but her own disappointment. Even Sora, Donald and Goofy were losing their touch, and they had only been in Zootopia for no more than three days as of now. When the brown spiky haired panther handed his own ticket to the toy sized Isetta painted in a very pastel green, the female mouse who owned the car, held the ticket in her left hand, knowing that it too was late. Her reply was sardonic.

"You're a real hero, panther!"

A seven-year-old female hippo in a blue shirt with red collars and gold stars on the sleeves had a similar complaint when Donald gave her and her mother's blue van a ticket that was also late.

"My mommy says she wishes you were dead."

Her mother did not scold her for being so rambunctious, she just took her right arm and stomped away.

Goofy, always the clumsy type, left ten tickets on any car he saw fit. Only three of their parking spaces were expired and the six other drivers were shouting expletives of "RETARD!" at him for his idiocrasy. "Retard" was a foul, almost profane substitute for words like "idiot", and while Goofy could take the latter, the former word was boggling his ears to the point of breaking down into tears. Anymore and it possibly would have driven him to suicide.

At the Flora & Fauna Florist Shop, Judy walked slowly back to her vehicle, sitting down with defeat by slamming her forehead against the steering wheel at the start of each sentence.

"I am a real cop. I am a real cop. I am a real cop."

"I suggest taking their words with a grain of salt," said Sora, sitting down in the passenger seat next to her. "It's like Bonkers said, you'll get promoted."

At the moment he said "promoted", a ring from the door came and Sora's blue eyes caught a quick flash of the weasel in a tank top and night blue shorts with red and white lining and holding a large rusty red satchel on his back. A male pig in a light purple top with small morning glories decorated and the words "Flora & Fauna" in pink red cursive on the upper right section came shaking the vehicle with both hands. Sora, taken by surprise, looked at the pig whose name was Franklin Hogg shouting.

"MY SHOP'S BEEN ROBBED!"

Sora could see the weasel skittering away as fast as he could, jumping out of the vehicle and summoning the Kingdom Key Chain in his right hand. He could still hear Franklin shouting to Judy.

"ARE YOU A REAL COP OR NOT?!"

Judy's large ears picked up his words and they moved quickly into her brain like the pulses of electro-shock therapy breaching her cerebral cortex, spreading to the sagittal plane then covering her entire cerebral hemisphere. It seemed to provide her with the energy that she needed for this exciting, but forthcoming chase.

"Yes!" was what she said to Franklin and removing her hat, followed by her vest with no intention of making a meter maid do an officer's work, she flung into the street flanked by Donald and Goofy, smiling as the wind seemed to carry her to the destiny that she truly and rightfully deserved. She gained on Sora and the weasel through a tight street shouting "Stop!" twice on each footsteps that landed on the pavement. Seeing her badge (and her species), the weasel shouted back.

"Catch me if you can, cottontail!"

As they reached for the open, Sora's hands were close to his tail. He shot himself forward, intending for hands to yank the weasel's tail, but Judy's all-too-soon involvement allowed the weasel to give him a boost while trying to balance the stolen load. Instead Sora landed on his chin, sliding twelve feet before the crowd of animals near the park where City Hall lay just ahead with its tower of African rock lurking over Zootopia, proud and tall in the glory of the officials residing in it. Judy, on the other hand, slid past him and continued her way to the tracks of the metro trains while Donald and Goofy helped Sora to his feet.

The weasel glided left and right, sliding under a male elephant and found himself freaking out at the sight of a Lamborghini Urus police car, its siren blaring loudly enough to send him running under the car and far away from their sight. Officer McHorn stepped out from the driver's seat with a Motorola microphone to his mouth.

"This is Officer McHorn, we got a ten-thirty-one—"

He was interrupted by Judy leaping onto the roof of the car in spectacular performance followed by the trinity of newcomers. She shouted "I got dibs!" while sliding down the rear window and falling over the rear bumper with a "Woo-hoo!" while raising her arms in the air.

"Tell them that Officer Hopps is in pursuit!"

Officer McHorn did so and little did Judy know was that she was likely to get in deep shit with the chief.

Nearly colliding with a screeching light green Citroën DS, the weasel ran himself in a line of fire from Donald's mage staff when he fired "Freeze!" at the weasel's tail. But, unfortunately, the weasel was too quick for a spell of any power and he raced his way towards a gated community with the sign "Little Rodentia" at the bottom of the wall. With one big leap, he pushed the satchel over the wall and dived to the entrance. Three mice went out of their way to let him through. The weasel then straightened himself up with open hands and the satchel made a perfect landing in his hands. He continued on, laughing to himself.

While Sora, Donald and Goofy leaped over the fence, Judy performed the same tactics as the weasel, she slid under the entrance and stopped, looking around at her surroundings. She felt like a giant in a monster film at this miniature, scale model version of Zootopia's urban communities where smaller creatures of the rodent family lived in harmony. There were miniature cars, shops and houses that were obviously too large for her or her companions to enter, but look through. Three blocks away, she could see the bag "floating" above the rooftops, a dead giveaway of the culprit.

"You!"

They ran off as Officer McHorn reached the gate.

"Hey! Meter maid! Wait for the real cops!"

Judy had apparently not heeded his words, she and the three explorers slid their way, avoiding the cars and pedestrians that made a quick retreat at the giants entering their world where size was normal for a mouse. Even the weasel found it difficult as his feet crashed through two trucks, a pastel blue one on his left and a pink orange one on his right. Skating through and ignoring the screams of the drivers, he laughed back at Sora, Judy, Goofy and Donald and shoved the cars off before jumping.

His leap took him in the alley way between the number eight and nine apartment buildings. Number nine was in green, while number eight was in orange. He hoisted the satchel to the top of the buildings and flipped around just as his quartet of would be catchers had a chance to grab a piece of his clothing while he was still in the alley. By the time Judy reached him, he was heading west towards the tracks of the el train that ran the entire length of the community. Judy jumped up when he reached the tracks, yet the momentum he had put into his leap had caused the white colored four story apartment building to topple from its foundations, creating the domino effect of crashing down in a pile of bricks. One mouse, doing exercise in a hamster wheel in the apartment on the left of the white one, started to slide downwards, watching the equipment fall. Judy, leaping slowly, was able to stop the domino effect by placing the back of her upper body on the green building and pushing her feet against the orange apartment. Screams from its occupants filled her ears and it took nearly all of her strength and pendulum to straighten the buildings. The three passed her by, while she found herself on tiptoe against the panicking residents.

When they came to the tracks, two blasts of a horn informed her than an electric train was approaching. With a great leap, Judy sprung out of the way, landing back on the tracks to watch the weasel flip the bird at her with his left middle finger.

"Bon voyagie, flatfoot!"

 _Nobody gives me the finger!_ Judy was now enraged and she ran after him.

Sora, having landed back on the street with his entourage, followed her from behind, not expecting the transportation tubes that lay ahead. The tubes seen on the main street of Little Rodentia were in various colors of indigo, yellow, crimson and bottle green and were often used as quicker ways for executives to travel between two buildings without the inconvenience of traffic, even during rush hour. When the weasel had seen them, he had performed a series of acrobatic tricks that came with his sly, fast skills. He ducked at the indigo, lowered his upper body sideways to the right while holding the bag at the yellow, slantways to the left at the red and with his upper body to the roof of the train while carrying the bag in his feet at the green. He laid like a model when he came to a purple set of tubes, but he didn't expect to see Judy, who had taken a shortcut, hanging upside down from the arch of yellow tubes. Her hands gripped the weasel's neck, choking him to the point of nearly popping his eyes out. Sora, watching her from the top of the white building with some green window shades and roof decals with Donald and Goofy cheered her on for what looked like the final steps of the weasel, who while in Judy's grip, was hoisted into the air.

The weasel, grip finally released from the satchel went up by ten feet before his back came to The Big Donut restaurant and toppled over before he came to the other side. The satchel lay near the front, attracting a crowd of curious onlookers. Other pedestrians fled the scene and cars that had stopped before The Big Donut had screeched to a stop in jackknifed positions while others on their right hand side of the street lane went the right of way. The weasel, his feet lying on the edge of the donut shoppe, then looked up at his four pursers.

"STOP IN THE NAME OF THE LAW!"

Even though he had stopped, Judy couldn't help but say something that made her feel like a strong minded and independent female even without her male companions. The weasel seeing the opportunity, shouted.

"Have a donut, bitch!"

And his feet pushed the donut off of its stand. Mice scrambled to get away from the donut as Judy yelled and dived down the avenue. Sora jumped to the blue building on his right side while Goofy and Donald scaled the equal building on the left. Judy even found the satchel waiting in front of her eyes and grabbed for it before the weasel could reach it, leaving her three assistants to wonder about the bouncing donut heading down the avenue.

Eighteen meters away on the pedestrian crossing in front of Mousey's, a well-known department store that sold the latest in fashion, accessories, furniture and cosmetics among other details, a trinity of female shrew, Fru Fru Shrewney, Madeleine and Jemima were just leaving from an hour long shopping spree for what was to be her wedding to a fine mouse who had enough riches to support herself and the remaining members of her extended family. Fru Fru had a tall set of black hair matching her eyes and wore a sour green dress with gold earrings, a pearl necklace and sharp teeth that was almost uncommon for a female shrew. She carried two bags in each arm from an earlier trip at Targoat. Madeleine wore a white floppy hat with an iceberg blue band that corresponded with her own dress embroidered with green leaves and white dandelions and carried one bag in each arm. Jemima, who also wore a floppy hat, covered her body in a lemon dress, and like her friend Madeleine, she was carrying one Targoat bag in each hand. As they were leaving the store, Fru Fru was gossiping giddily over the details of her wedding as well as other things to purchase later on for tonight.

"Oh my Gawd, did you see those leopard print jeggings?"

Madeleine saw it first, followed a split second later by Jemima at the sound of thunder belonging to the runaway donut. In near-synchronization, the two girls screamed and fled for their lives, leaving behind a confused Fru Fru, who could not understand their reactions until it was too late. Turning her head by one hundred and twenty degrees, she saw the large donut bouncing straight towards her in a menacing threat to crush her. Screaming, Fru Fru could see her life on fast-forward (in other words, watching her life flash before her eyes) and cowered with shut eyes, ready to accept her fate. It was Goofy who saved the day with his shield. He held it in his right hand, flung it, released it at the exact angle and it flew to the donut at the pace of a race car, it made contact with the side just as it was about three inches away from bringing Fru Fru's life to a messy end. The blow it delivered was so hard that it sent the donut flying towards the gate where it remained there, four feet above the ground. In the true fashion of a Frisbee, the shield came back to Goofy and when Fru Fru saw her saviors waving at her, she shouted.

"Thank you!"

"You're welcome!" cried Judy from afar. "Love your hair."

"Now for the weasel."

After he said this, Sora raised his Keyblade five inches above his head at the panicked weasel and swung it down. The teeth crashed into the weasel's crown and he collapsed, lying on his back who no blood leaking from the blow. Judy was fortunate that the weasel was unconscious, as it would have been considered a crime for Sora to murder another criminal in spite of the weasel's record since he was obviously not an official policeman. She then high fived the three and carried the unconscious weasel to police station along with the satchel.

Emmeline Otterton had been speaking with Clawhauser when she arrived. The female otter wore a periwinkle shirt with a lavender sweater of a dress and had green eyes contrasting with her brown fur. Simply put she was a homemaker with two boys, Arnie and Corey, to support while she tried to find a job for extra money. During her travels, she had known that her husband Emmitt was late when she made a spaghetti dinner ten days ago and decided to seek counsel with the Chief for anything revolving around Emmitt. She was surprised when Duke Weaselton came flying in through the doors, thanks to Sora, who set the bag alongside him. He was flanked by Judy, who flew in like a regular superheroine, declaring loudly.

"I _popped_ the weasel!"

Three floors above her however, Chief Bogo came stomping up to the walled railing and it was Donald and Goofy who were the first to notice him just before the very second he shouted.

"HOPPS! MY OFFICE! NOW!"

Judy concealed her eyes with her left hand. All she could do in this tight situation was mutter.

" _Shit._ "

However, if the confrontation went well, or worse, she would have two options: demotion or suspension.


	8. The Case of the Missing Otter

Judy felt small and helpless (true to her size) as she sat with her hands locked in the orange chair of Chief Bogo's office with her ears down in disgrace. Sora, Donald and Goofy flanked her while standing up at the same time. The office itself was large behind a small door of blue glass with Chief Bogo's name written on it in gold, complete with medals, a map of Zootopia on the right side wall, three bookshelves and a forty-inch-wide desk made of maple wood. Reading from the red binder report in his right hand, the chief read from the glasses in his left.

"Abandoning your post, inciting a scurry, reckless endangerment to rodents…"

He placed the glasses down, his voice turning calm.

"And to be fair, you and your three volunteer workers did stop a master criminal from stealing two dozen moldy onions."

His right hand zipped open the bag, revealing what appeared to be autumn red onions with tan yellow tips. Judy knew better from her years as a farm girl, despite her objections that led to her becoming a police officer.

"I hate to disagree with you sir, but those aren't really onions. Those are a crocus variety called _mendicampum holicifius_ , they're a Class С botanical, sir. Well, I grew up in a family where plant husbandry was kind of a thing—"

Chief Bogo's uninterested face only held the anger back from his external expressions, keeping it within his internal emotions before cutting Judy off in the middle of her "nerd mode".

"Shut your fucking mouth, _now!_ "

The wind from his mouth blew a wind that wobbled Judy's ears and he slammed his left hand on the satchel, covering the contents. He threw it over to the left wall, not caring if any of the "invaluable" contents spilled out. Now it was Sora's turn to speak on Judy's behalf.

"Sir, we got the bad guy…and that's Judy's job! To catch criminals, finding clues, rescuing people in distress and solving mysteries."

"Which is one of the things we often do on our travels," Donald added, raising his right index finger to the ceiling.

"There is a reason why I gave Hopps this position," the chief interjected.

Judy slumped in the chair, wanting to admit it herself.

"I know, because I'm small and you want to leave all the hard work to the larger, more professional guys and gals who tend to overlook my size. Today, when I finally do some _actual_ police work, I should be given a medal for my service, even if the materials were invaluable. So that should also be my job as well!"

"Your job," the chief's right index finger pounded the table at each word. "Is putting tickets on parked cars!"

A beep from the intercom infuriated him further. The voice was from Clawhauser downstairs.

"Chief, Mrs. Otterton's here to see you again..."

The same index finger pressed the intercom button on the cord phone with a hard click.

"Not now," the chief groaned.

"Okay I just need to know if you want to take it this time, she seems really upset about her husban—"

But the cheetah's ear nearly bled when Bogo's loud voice came from the other side.

"NOT NOW!"

While his eyes were still on the phone, Judy tried again.

"Sir, I know you don't want to be held responsible if anything were to happen to me, but I don't want to be a meter maid forever. I want to be a real, live cop."

Chief Bogo stood up, making Judy seem smaller than what she really was.

"Do you think the Mayor asked what I wanted when he assigned you to me?"

"You mean hiring a meter maid?" Goofy asked.

A triple knock on the door came, requesting Bogo's services, but the chief locked his eyes on Goofy, explaining.

"Of course, you dumb dog. The prior applicant was an anteater who got run over by an SUV while trying to clean up the highbrow street."

Judy's voice prevented Bogo from getting his anger at the clumsy dog, whose strength seemed to be beyond compare with his wits.

"Sir, it's what I have been dreaming of since I was nine. Even Bonkers inspired to me to become a cop."

But Bogo saw the thinner cheetah as nothing more than a necessary element of comedy to the headquarters, next to Clawhauser in a balance between obesity and thinness. His brown-red eyes shot fire into Judy and her companions for one final score before settling the matter once and for all.

"Know this, Hopps: Life isn't some shitty cartoon musical where you sing a little happy song and all your insipid inane dreams just _magically_ come true. So…"

He lifted his left index finger, punctuating the last three words with brutal emphasis.

"Let. It. Go."

As the chief turned to the door, Sora's eyes looked up in a northeastern position, wondering.

"Where have I heard that before?" he muttered in a voice he hoped that Chief Bogo wouldn't hear.

He didn't have to hear anything, for he opened the door, revealing a less frantic Mrs. Emmeline Otterton.

"Chief Bogo, may I please have five minutes of your time?"

She was followed by Clawhauser, coming in momentarily.

"I'm sorry, sir. She was insistent."

Bogo ignored Clawhauser's incompetence and looked down at Mrs. Otterton, comparing her size with Judy's.

"Ma'am, as I've told you, our detectives are doing all we can."

The poor woman looked desperate with the way she held a family snapshot in both hands. Holding her in the green sweater was her husband, which Judy had recognized from the first day she came to work. Below them were two younger male otters, one in a blue shirt on the right and an orange uniform with a banana yellow stripe down the mille while holding a soccer ball. Sora, Goofy and Donald took sympathy as well to hear Mrs. Otterton recount the details of her family through racked sobs.

"You should know by now that my husband had been missing for ten days, his name is Emmitt Otterton. He's a florist, we have two beautiful boys, Corey and Arnie and he would never just disappear without telling me or the kids."

Judy gazed deeper into the photograph, connecting the two otters together, Chief Bogo continued to console the wrecked female.

"Ma'am, our plainclothes detectives are extremely busy with more important matters."

"Please!" the otter continued with her begging. "There has to be someone to find my Emmitt."

If all the other officers, detectives and even a majority of the FBI were preoccupied with other matters and settlements, Judy began to question if this was the right opportunity for her as such a case would involve the dangerous tasks of fighting goons and rescuing captured otters for who knows what could have really happened to them. She looked at Sora, who winked his right eye, then Donald and Goofy, who smiled in respectful silence.

" _We_ will look for him."

The otter and the bull turned to hear Judy's words and she stepped down to face Mrs. Otterton who looked as though she could explode with tears of joy.

"Oh thank you!" she shouted, hugging the photograph to her heart.

Then she rushed to Judy's position by the chair, hugging her tightly as the rabbit took it in after an initial surprise.

"Bless you! Bless you, little bunny!"

Judy hugged her back, remembering the same conditions between herself and her younger siblings comforting them whenever they were scared, angry, sad or even as a thanks for all the birthday presents she had gotten them over the years. Sora's heart melted but Chief Bogo just snorted with zero tolerance for emotional moments. Donald and Goofy smiled sweetly with a mental "hugs mean love" note written in their minds. They continued to watch Mrs. Otterton prepare to offer her something in return for accepting the mission.

"Take the photograph, find my Emmitt and bring him home to me and my boys."

Judy took the photograph, studied it for a second and looked over it, meeting her eyes with Mrs. Otterton's. Finalizing a nod, Chief Bogo cleared his throat. His right hand was holding the door open and his left hand was gesturing her out the door with a friendly smile.

"Mrs. Otterton, please wait outside."

"Of course, thank you both so much."

She obliged, reaching the entrance just as her tail was out of range from the closing door. The chief kept smiling until the door was closed all the way, turning into an upside down glare hidden from the quartet's view.

"You fucking bunny bitch. You think you can just say that you'll be able to do it yourself with those three who have no experience on the force?"

Judy nodded yes. A headstrong and defendant sort of yes.

"Well, you're fired."

Sora wanted to spit at him, but Judy had to blurt out.

"Fired?! Just because I wanted to take this task?"

"For insubordination!" the chief had his left index finger aimed at her, the panther, the duck and the dog. "When I open this door, you are going to tell that otter that you are a former meter maid high on LSD and delusions of grandeur who will not be taking the case."

When his right hand opened the door, who should appear but Assistant Mayor Dawn Bellwether, holding Mrs. Otterton's hands like they were close friends. She chose to wear a night blue sweater with a black and dark grey checkerboard dress, still seen with her glasses and golden pendants.

"I just heard that Officer Hopps and her three companions are taking the case!"

Chief Bogo turn his frown of anger right side up, surprised by her presence.

"Assistant Mayor Bellwether! I didn't know you'd be here."

"I got in just as your new recruits did," Miss Bellwether was rapidly texting the news on her iPhone. "This whole mammal inclusion initiative is really starting to pay off. Mayor Lionheart is just gonna be so…"

She wiggled her back in excitement.

"…jazzed!"

Bogo held his left hand out defensively. There was panic in his eyes.

"Let's not tell the mayor just yet."

But too late, Miss Bellwether's right index finger clicked the send button and the sound of a jet liner taking off broke the atmospheric silence.

"Sent and done. Now that that is done and over with, I'd say the case is in good hands."

She walked in. Chief Bogo dropped his smile and plastered his left hand to his eyes, sliding it downwards at the fact that his whole world of organization and precision was falling apart all because of a bunny and three visitors from other words. Sora gazed curiously at the sheep, taken by her charm and rapid typing skills.

"I don't believe we met. I'm Sora, one of the new, honorary recruits."

His right hand was open to take hers, but Bellwether's hands were on Judy's, taking her back to graduation day with similar words from the sheep that granted her a medal for being the academy's number one-star student just one week ago.

"Us little guys have got to stick together, right?"

Judy's nod was large.

"Like glue!"

"Good one," Miss Bellwether giggled. "Just call me if you ever need anything, okay? You've always got a true friend at city hall, Judy."

The sheep darted her eyes at Sora for a brief second, reminding her of the mayor with the way he stood, proud, efficient and ready to take on the responsibilities of the policewoman that Judy had always wanted to be. With a sweet "Good bye!" Miss Bellwether waved her left hand at the glum Chief Bogo still standing by the door. Goofy, Donald and Sora waved after her.

"Thank you, ma'am," Judy replied quietly.

Chief Bogo closed the door in disgrace, closing his eyes and sighed deeply by throwing his head down.

"It seems like your volunteer workers are now official officers," Donald said.

"More like visitors turned local heroes," added Goofy. "You don't want to let your mayor down, would ya, chief?"

Judy waited anxiously. The reply came to her in the form of a sighed defeat on the chief's part

"I will give the four of you…"

He opened his eyes, aiming his left index finger at them like before.

"…forty eight hours."

"YES!" Judy jumped into the air with joy.

"That's two days to find Emmitt Otterton and possibly even the other missing mammals," Bogo reminded darkly.

"BUT!"

Now it was his right index finger that was about let them off with not a warning, but a magnitude.

"You strike out and you resign. As for you three, volunteer or visiting, you are going back to where you came from. You may find that I am not too friendly with off-worlders."

Judy's ears dropped, Sora's spikes seemed to fall flat, Donald dropped his jaw and Goofy felt his limbs growing weak in the knees. But Judy gave the punishment a quick "okay" with the idea that she would never fail her first real assignment.

"It is a deal."

Satisfied, Chief Bogo had his hands locked to each other, his prayers having been answered. His gentlemanly way of personality allowed him to open the door for a proper lady like Judy Hopps.

"Clawhauser and Bonkers will give you the complete case file."

Sora followed her, with Goofy in third and Donald at the end of the short line. Once the door was closed, Chief Bogo slumped back to his chair, sulking over his regretful decision. He could not bear to imagine what would happen if Judy did not survive her task. But at least she had three off-landers to protect her, even if she didn't need them the most and his mind circulated over the thought of hiring more bunny officers to do his bidding. As more and more of his imagined future of Judy becoming a successful police officer crowded his head, he could see a new generation beyond his own. A generation of animals who never joined the police force before.

 _What's next?_ He wondered. _Foxes?!_

The four arrived at Clawhauser's deck, with Judy being the first to question.

"The chief wanted me to have the file for an Emmitt Otterton."

Hearing the name, Clawhauser searched the interior of his large round desk. He always kept recent cases in the drawers, or at least a copy of a particular file with the original belonging to the records where it properly belonged. The red file, held by a paper clip in the upper left corner, had the police insignia in the middle with the words "Missing Mammal Report" on the bottom. On the right side, was the name "Otterton" in New Courier font.

"Here you go. One missing otter."

Judy opened the folder with Sora looking over her left shoulder. The paper clip held a headshot of Emmitt Otterton, with just one paper explaining his name, gender, height (two-point-four inches tall), weight (twenty-one pounds), species ( _lontra canadensis_ ), address (2347 Riverbrook Lane in the Rainforest District), occupation (florist) and any leads, witnesses or evidence were marked with a red "none" by each word. At the bottom was a Polaroid snapshot of a street corner with the subtitle "Last Known Sighting" in Courier font. To Judy, it felt like a dearth of information, she expected more to go with her case.

"That's it?"

"Yes!" Clawhauser nodded. "That is the smallest case file I have ever seen. Leads? None. Witnesses? None. And your four aren't even in the computer system yet. In other words, you've got no resources!"

The cheetah laughed heartedly in the way he held a rainbow sprinkled chocolate donut in his right hand, while his left hand carried a bottle of Coca-Cola with a red and white straw in it. As he finished, he shook the donut lightly, but also causing eight sprinkles patter against the table and getting on the paper.

"I hope you don't stake your careers by cracking this case."

Donald saw Judy's frown and then furrowed his eyes at Clawhauser, who took the angry expression with a faltering laugh.

"Keep underestimating us and I'll give you a spell that will make you explode from eating all that junk food."

"Is that a threat?" Clawhauser asked nervously. "I could have you arrested for that."

"Yes, it was a threat," Donald calmed his voice by an inch. "As a matter of fact, cheetahs like you should be running fast, not lazing about."

"Words hurt too you know!"

Clawhauser was fretting over his size, reminding him of his parents wanted him to be a runner for the police force, but he felt to be too dangerous if he were to be killed on the front lines. Yet when Judy dusted the blue and green sprinkles off of the photograph, she thought that a closer observation of the captured view would give her the extra information that she needed. With no magnifying glass, she caught sight of the Coke bottle and understood that its glass material would be perfect for magnification.

"Could I borrow this for a second?"

Her left eye into the bottle after both of her hands released the bottle from Clawhauser's straw. He had been slurping the last drop, it was still attached to his mouth when she finally saw Mr. Otterton with his tongue sticking out and holding a pawpsicle in his right hand. It was the same color and flavor of pawpsicle that Nick Wilde used on the executives of Lemming Brothers Bank.

"Pawpsicle," she muttered.

Clawhauser's right hand released the straw from his mouth.

"The murder weapon."

Sora rolled his eyes at his all-too-conclusive stupidity.

"You can't murder someone with ice cream unless it's been poisoned."

Judy lowered the top of the bottle to her neck, her eyes went wide and the pupils dilated into a sudden realization. Her mind played backwards to yesterday, when she caught Nick Wilde and Finnick in the act of illegally distributing a melted strawberry flavored jumbo pop to lemmings and mice for construction material. She could hear Nick shouting "Get your pawpsicles!" in an echo that spanned the length of her brain. Looking into the bottle again, she could make out a red tail belonging to a fox in a green shirt and grey shorts walking behind the pole of a street light. Her suspicions confirmed, she turned to Clawhauser, who was making Donald apologize for the comment about the spell on his weight.

"Clawhauser, could you get me the files on a Nick Wilde?"

To her surprise, he agreed.

Pushing a pump pink stroller with a sleeping Finnick on Townser Lane, Nick Wilde, feeling perfect, contended and as happy as he could be, exchanged a fleeting glance with a father hippo in a blue striped shirt and dark navy pants, carrying his own son in a baby blue stroller. The father seemed to have been taken aback by Finnick's loud snoring and when Nick locked his eyes onto his, he kept staring at the fox like he was a dangerous assaulter. When they were about twenty feet apart from each other, Judy drove alongside them in her vehicle, with Sora, Donald and Goofy on the Keyblade Rider behind them.

"Hello again!" they all said in unison.

Nick looked at Judy with wide open eyes, sensing that Judy had the intention of arresting him for another recent offense, but when he observed Sora flying the Glider, he felt surprised by this sort of invention before he fixed a surprised smile onto his face when his eyes met Judy's again.

"Well, if it isn't Officer Bunny."

"Actually, my name is Officer Hopps, in case you were joking. I would like to ask you some questions about a case."

Her right hand reached behind her back for a blue notebook with a carrot exterior of a pencil. But Nick resumed his cool, half-masted eyes and carried on.

"What happened, meter maid, did someone steal a traffic cone? Because I know it wasn't me."

He rushed ahead of her and when he reached an alleyway, Sora took over. His right foot pressed an inch forward of the glider and moved up on the sidewalk blocking Nick's path by four feet.

"Could we talk some other time? I've gotta get to work."

Sora stepped off the glider, allowing Judy to stop her car beside the stroller.

"I think your two dollar pawpsicles can wait."

"I make two hundred bucks a day, panther tail," Nick defended, pointed his right index finger down on the bar of the stroller for emphasis. "Three hundred and sixty-five days a year since I was twelve. Time is money, so I suggest you run along and find some other asshole to pick on."

Donald went over to Judy's car, taking the blue notebook with his right hand before she had time to notice.

"Mind if I borrow this?"

He was already walking away when he did so, and Judy could only nod yes.

"Look at this."

In both hands he presented the photograph that she had copied and magnified in the lab.

"We know you sold Mr. Otterton a pawpsicle. Do you know him?"

"I know almost everybody in this city," Nick spoke, leaning three inches closer to him. "And I also know that there is a toy store that is deprived of stuffed animals, so why don't you three get back on your little...flying machine and into your box."

Donald lowered the notebook, glaring at him with eyes of fire. Judy, watching them from her car, also took this as an insult. Her determined face had other thoughts besides being underestimated for her size.

 _Fine, looks like I'll have to do this the hard way._

She found a yellow boot from the back of the car and ran over to the stroller. The boot, used for preventing cars, bikes and motorcycles from escaping police custody, found itself attached to the right front wheel. When Nick heard the "clink" of the boot being strapped on, he found Judy standing there looking proud and professional like the police officer she truly was; prim and proper with no humor in her face.

"Well, that's ridiculous, you just booted my stroller!"

Judy's voice also matched her stature.

"Nicholas Wilde, you are under arrest for felony and tax evasion."

"How do you know?" Nick remained sly.

"Your files told me."

Nick dropped his charade and his eyes widened at Judy writing down the details with the carrot pen in her right hand. Donald took his rear left, while Goofy did the right, making sure his chances of escaping were inevitable in addition to the boot.

"According to your forms," Judy went on. "Your total income is…zero. A big fat zero just like you."

Nick felt anger in his veins, but kept it under control. He held on to the bar of the stroller, his grip growing tighter and tighter until it seemed like he could break the bar with unknown strength and throw it away, forgetting that Finnick was still riding in it. The nervous look on his face read "I'm in deep shit now", but what his mouth said was:

"Are you calling me fat?"

"No, I am saying that your form is a punishable offense. Five years in jail is a pretty long time."

Judy's fake empathy was rivaled by Nick's pathetic face of "I don't care". But the fox simply crossed his arms, his eyes going back half-mast and saying.

"My word against yours."

While he had been speaking to Sora, Judy had remembered the recording feature on her carrot pen and played it in reverse. The words spoken by Nick two minutes earlier came on the pen that had been used for taking shorthand or remembering notes before writing them through the speaker.

" _I make two hundred bucks a day, panther tail. Three hundred and sixty-five days a year since I was twelve. Time is money, so I suggest you run along and find some other asshole to pick on._ "

"Actually," Judy was growing enthusiastic. "It is _your_ word against _yours_."

For the third time, Nick's eyes went wide at the display of Judy's untapped intelligence. This time he kept his hands down from the bar of the stroller and gripped the entrances of his pockets, feeling agitated and miserably retarded.

 _I can't believe I have been outsmarted by a bunny who thinks she knows a lot more than me._

And she did, continuing to explain.

"If you want to get rid of this pen, you're going to have to help us find this poor missing otter."

"Unless you fancy spending the rest of your life in the big house for all that tax evasion," Goofy added.

"How smart of you Goofy," said Judy, taking on a tone of mean. "The prison cafeteria is the ONLY place where you can actually get to sell pawpsicles."

After a second, she placed her left hand on her hip with her right elbow on that side, mimicking Nick's half-closed eyes as she secretly felt like a "dumb bunny" she was perceived as.

"It's called a hustle, sweetheart."

"She hustled you," a deep voice came from the stroller.

The cover opened up to reveal a chuckling Finnick, who stood up on the foot rest, shouting.

"She hustled you good!"

"Well, we helped," Sora added.

Without so much as a reply from the panther, Finnick went to the top of the stroller and gripped Nick's dark blue tie of red pinstripes, which would have choked the fox his throat wasn't so thin. But nick was still unimpressed at being the victim of his own hustle.

"You're a cop now, Nick. So you're gonna need one of these."

His right hand removed the badge sticker from yesterday and stamped it on the left front pocket of Nick's yellow-green shirt of Hawaiian plants and leafs. Then Finnick jumped off the stroller, laughing his way into alley as he shouted.

"Have fun workin' with da fuzz!"

He chortled all the way to the end of the alleyway. Nick privately wanted him to die from all that to distance himself from Finnick's betrayal. But as he watched his now ex-colleague disappear into the dark mist of the alley, Judy spoke to him, serious.

"Start talking, fox."

Nick sighed, his half-mast eyes now reflecting his fatigue and stress from having been "outfoxed" (no pun intended) from a rabbit, a panther, a duck and a dog who didn't look like he passed his college fencing class.

"I don't know where he is. I only saw where he went. And it's not exactly a place for a cute little bunny."

Judy, remembering her conversation with Clawhauser, was now taking this as an actual offense.

"Do not. Call me. Cute! Now get in."

Nick walked his way over to the vehicle, sitting down in the passenger seat with a quick sigh. He looked at Sora preparing the Keyblide Glider with jealousy.

"Why can't I ride in that thing?"

Sora was hopping on when he explained the weight in lack of substance.

"It's called a Keyblade Glider and it can only support me and my friends."

His mention of the word "friends" was supported by Donald climbing on the left wing, with Goofy taking the right. Nick jerked his head clockwise back to Judy.

"Before you ask, the place you are looking for is the Mystic Springs Oasis. Somewhere in Savannah Square."

"Never heard of it. Is it as spa of some kind?"

"Believe me, when you get there. You're gonna find out it's more than just a spa."

The three story façade of the Mystic Springs Oasis was in the style of Islamic architecture, circa ninth century Tunisia. Its name, written in an Arabic font, lay just above the wooden doors surrounded by a doorway of eleven turquoise circles. Two leafy plants lay in pots on each side with a lantern above the doorway as the only source of light. The walls and towers of the building were white with light and dark tones of pink, yellow and red for the décor. The copper roofs were grown with creepers and floral vines with leafs and the only objects that could be seen on the other side of the building were four palm trees. The walls on the first floor of the complex also had windows with wooden shutters, almost resembling doors. To put it simply, the Mystic Springs Oasis looked like a palace, even reminding Sora of the palace of Agrabah when he first laid eyes on it.

When they arrived, Judy had her own expression at the seemingly exotic atmosphere. It seemed like the perfect place for Mr. Otterton to have a message after his strenuous days at the florist shop.

"Well, this looks like a nice place."

Her later thoughts, among them the occupants and members, were mixed. When they got inside, it looked nearly dark with a curtain of beads hiding the office in partial views. Judy moved the curtain aside first with both hands on each side, amazed at the extraordinary detail of ancient culture and exotic lands while Nick went in from the right side, followed by Donald, Sora and Goofy.

Synthetic nightfall provided the atmosphere of this impromptu palace in its antechamber of pots, lamps and indigo velvet curtains from the Middle East. On their right was a flat fountain; its centerpiece, a group of crystals sitting on a stone slab depicting ocean life at the bottom before the surface of the water, glowed a dark blue that shimmered in the chandelier of rubies, sapphires and other gemstones attached to a metal coil. Additional light was provided by the lanterns sitting on the floor by the curtains and the fountain. At the right end of the wall after the fountain curtain were two drawings: a strawberry under a blueberry that looked more like an apple.

A carpet of red and unique designs lay before the wooden desk where a yak meditated, Asian style, with eight candle on his left hand side and six on his right with a lantern by the bottom of the desk on that side. In the center was a smaller version of the carpet held down by a large brown logbook and behind the yak was a mosaic of a blue flower with red pollen, delimited by three layers of flower petals, a circle of blue with some designs with yellow and green and another layer of petals allegorically representing the sun. On both sides were lit lanterns, the left side having two paper lanterns of blue on the top and yellow on the bottom while the right side had two green upside down triangles with one red in between held by a gold chain.

The yak in question, named Yax, was brown with unkempt hair occupied by a colony of flies. He was rather scrawny with bot belly and wore an orange beaded necklace holding a jade pedant with a red fire of string at the bottom. He also had two gold bracelets in his right arm and his shaggy hair was filled with eight tiny white daisies and three gerbera daisies standing out from the rest. He was repeating to the rhythm of a slow and long "Omm….." when Judy and her companions arrived.

"Hello?"

Yax coughed and spluttered from one fly that seemed to inhabit his mouth and shook his head that sent the majority of the fly colony away from his head and then back again like the fiber of lungs breathing air in and out. His hands pushed the hair that curtained his eyes from view and caught sight of Judy, beginning to speak.

"Hello, my name is—"

"Oh, I'm afraid I'm gonna have to hit the pause button right there, cause we're all good on Bunny Scout cookies."

Yax seemed friendly to all, especially to young children in spite of his…uniqueness. But Judy had to correct him per habit of nature.

"No, I'm Officer Hopps of the ZPD. I'm looking for Emmitt Otterton."

Her right hand pulled out the snapshot and gave it to Yax's left hand. Yax, pulling back a right lock of his hair, squinted at the missing otter.

"Has he frequented this establishment?"

As she asked him, Judy could understand that he was topless. Yax himself reacted with a deep gasp that matched his wide eyes and dropped jaw. He let out another sneeze, this time a much larger one that sent ten of the flies circulating around Judy's ears.

"Yeah, old Emmitt!" he was chuckling at the sight of this familiar face. His tail wagged as he gave it back to Judy.

"Haven't see him in a couple of weeks, but you should talk to his yoga instructor. I'd be happy to take you back."

Judy was excited. She hoped that the remainder of the building, the interior perhaps would give her a chance to explore more of Middle Eastern culture she only read about in world books back in her schools.

"Thank you so much. I can't imagine what-"

But she didn't imagine to see his rear end exposed.

"OH MY NOAH, YOU ARE NUDE!"

Flapping her hands around, Judy covered her eyes, but Nick remained the same with his sly smile. He had been used to this sort of stuff through pornographic magazines and peep shows that were too sinful for the mind of a twelve-year-old. Sora, Donald and Goofy were also used to unclothed animals, since some of their adventures had taken them to some places where animals were less advanced in comparison to Zootopia.

"Oh, for sure," said Yax turning counterclockwise to her. "We're a naturist club."

"As you were trying to prove before," Nick added, leaning down to her. "In Zootopia, anyone can be anything."

 _Anything but naturists!_ Judy protested in her head.

She could not imagine such a refined, sophisticated mammal like Emmitt Otterton attending such a ridiculous display natural exposure. Her thoughts worsened when Yax opened the door to the light—the light of the pool. An elephant, a rhino, a giraffe, a zebra, two bears and a pair of gazelles were playing out, relaxing or just splashing around in the pool that gave its appearance a regular Garden of Eden in the middle of an urban city. Judy covered her nose, thinking that the smell from exposed genitals seemed atrocious. The depiction of a million years ago in her play was coming back to life as a club for millennials and hippies. She could see a trio of hippos reaching out for a rubber white ball of yellow, blue and orange stripes in the pool. Five brown bears were rubbing their backs against the palmate bark of palm trees. Seven pigs relaxed and bathed in the pool of brown mud, matching their own feces. Judy was horrified to point of distress, Sora, Donald and Goofy observed the affairs in the manners of watching a nature film and Nick's question to the poor bunny did not seem to stir her mind away from atrocity.

"Does this make you uncomfortable? Because if it does, there is no shame in calling it quits."

Judy darted her eyes at Nick, turning her face into one of determination.

"Yes, there is. I ought to have you all arrested of incendiary nudity."

She had quietly addressed her last sentences to every member of the club. But knowing that they would not heed her words, she continued on.

Goofy could see a volleyball match between two hippos and two giraffes on his left. A sultry female panther licking her right upper leg on a rose red divan caught sight of Sora, growling flirtatiously at him which made the human-in-panther-skin Keyblader nervous at having a solid relationship with a total stranger next to Kairi. Donald could see a giraffe six feet away, leaning his head down to drink out of a fountain with his hands on his hips, almost close to his rear end. Judy felt disturbed and disgusted as Yax explained the motive of the establishment.

"Yeah, some mammals say the naturalist life is weird, but you know what I say is weird? Clothes on animals! Here we go. As you can see, Nangi's an elephant, so she'll totally remember everything."

His right arm was aiming at the tattooed elephant with a yellow bauble bracelet on her right wrist. She was sitting on her behind, eyes closed, legs up and spread apart, touching them as she along with a zebra, armadillo and a giraffe imitated her spread eagle positon in a perfect synchronization.

"Hey, Nangi!" yelled Yax in a voice that would not disturb the elephant from her state. "These dudes have some questions about Emmitt Otterton."

Nangi opened her eyes, abruptly.

"Who?"

"Emmitt Otterton. Been coming to your yoga class for, like, six years."

Judy held up the family snapshot, hoping that Yax was not obscuring her view with his long, tousled hair. But Nangi, in a strange contrast to Yax's words, shook her head no.

"I have no memory of this otter."

"He was here a couple of Wednesdays ago, remember?"

By the time Yax said this, he was looking upside down to see Nangi, standing up and looking in-between her legs while her head was potted to the grass. Her students did the same, trying to balance their weight with clear minds.

"No."

"Yeah, he was wearing a green cable-knit sweater vest and a new pair of corduroy slacks. Oh, and a Paisley tie, sweet Windsor knot. Real tight. Remember that, Nangi?"

While Judy wrote the details down in her notebook, swishing her head back and forth for double takes over a more reliable source of information, Nangi's second reply was that of denial. She was standing like the figurehead of a park fountain, standing on her left foot with her right hand holding the foot on that side while her left arm was aimed forwards, simply muttering.

"I do not know."

As Judy continued to write, Sora could see that the entire conversation seemed to be the other way around, with Yax giving away all the details while Nangi was too immersed by her exercising to even remember _anything_.

"Yeah, and we both walked him out, and he got into this big old white car with a silver trim... Needed a tune-up, the third cylinder wasn't firing. Remember that, Nangi?"

By now, Nangi's upper body was on the grass with her toes touching her head. Again, there was denial in her voice.

"I am unfamiliar."

Then Judy, finishing up the details in her notebook, asked out of some impatience.

"Did you get the license plate number?"

As Nangi went upside down with her legs spread apart, Yax nodded.

"Oh, for sure. It was 2-9-T-H-D-0-3."

She underlined the number, closing it. Nick seemed to be getting tired, bored from watching the yoga class taking shape. Sora kept his ears open, trying to remember the details as his cohorts did the same.

"Thank you," they all said.

Yax looked back at the elephant, meditating with her eyes closed.

"Told you Nangi has a mind like a steel trap."

"More like the mind of a child," Sora muttered. "She's practically naïve."

"But still," Yax smiled. "I wish I had the memory of an elephant."

Outside where the vehicle was parked, the five came out through the smaller door on the right. Nick straightened his tie as Judy, finally free of the "pornographic" displays, took in a breath of relieved air. Goofy, Donald and Sora were the last to exit, waiting by the car as Judy and Nick conversed.

"Well, I had a ball. You're welcome for the clue," Nick said as Judy turned to face him. "and seeing as any retard can run a plate, I will take that pen and bid you adieu."

Judy suddenly remembered something else.

"I can't run a plate, I'm not in the system yet."

Nick was holding out his right hand for her, twitching his fingers.

"Pen please," he sang-sung.

"That all depends," said Judy, toying him with his signature expression. "Was it you who said that any retard can run a plate? If what you say is true, are you up for the task."

"Hopps, I did what you asked. You can't keep me on the hook forever."

"Not necessarily true," Sora interrupted. "I think we have about thirty-six hours left to solve this case."

"And see my family," Donald added.

Nick observed Judy, then Sora and finally, he went back to his laid-back smile.

"Actually, I just remembered, I have a pal at the DMV. His name is Flash Slothmore, he's the fastest guy in there. You need something done, he's on it."

"Then let's hop to it!"

Judy jumped into the car as she said this. With the three fellows from another world following behind them, Nick gave her the directions and once the Mystic Springs Oasis was far behind them, Judy was relieved that she would be dealing with clothed people for the remainder of the case.


	9. Sloth Motor Vehicle Division

The Department of Mammal Vehicles, located in a more rural part of town, was not too rich nor was it too poor. It was pretty modest with a light brown roof resembling zebra stripes. The police logo was attached to the right side while the left side had the letters "DMV" in white above the automatic doors. Judy and Nick parked the car alongside a saffron yellow Scion while Sora, Donald and Goofy leapt from the Glider and headed to the door where inside, two long lines of mammals waited patiently (or impatiently) for their turn. Five streamlined windows with posters and cabinets of archives behind them were chockablock with documents, prepared licenses, film rolls for photograph identification and information regarding license plates and the cars they were assigned to. When Judy first laid eyes on the employers of the establishment, her shock was even greater than the members of Mystic Springs.

"They're all sloths?!"

Now sloths were sluggish because of their extremely low metabolism rate. They traveled at forty-one yards per day and regularly slept for fifteen hours. They were strong swimmers and drove fast, but not on foot, which made them the perfect example for a major unemployed species, and those who worked at the DMV were lucky to have patient employers who could tolerate their time and speed. They could move faster if they were in immediate danger from a predator, but would have to burn large amounts of energy for doing so. For nightly meals, they had fruit and shoots with water from juicy plants at the grocery store.

Their customers however, did the best they could to tolerate their time. One male sloth in a powder blue shirt with a greenish teal striped necktie slowly stamped a final paper to a cheetah in a peach orange shirt, pressing it hard before moving on to the next, much the cheetah's impatience. A female with purple glasses, a green-grey sweater and a white and blue striped dress held an aquamarine stapler in her right hand, using it to staple three documents for an armadillo, meant to pay for her car. A female pig named Pamela with a wave of flaxen hair and a blue dress with red collars and fourteen stars on each sleeve had just turned sweet sixteen and was getting her driver's license, making sure her photograph was prim and perfect. Another male in a periwinkle purple shirt with a matching necktie of darker purple stripes held the button and when it looked as though something was wrong with the red button in his right hand, Pamela looked over to see the button actually being pressed down with a flash of the camera going off, catching her in an expression of surprise. When asked if she could try again, the sloth agreed and this time Pamela kept her patience in check without glancing over to cause another problem with her final photo. Every bit of activity, as it seemed, was a living example of life in slow motion.

"You said this was going to be quick!"

Nick could see that Judy was upset, but Sora remained mindful of the duo's conversation, deciding to keep himself, Goofy and Donald quiet until they reached the window. The fox was giving the bunny a sarcastic tone of sick sweetness.

"Are you saying that because he's a sloth he can't be fast? I thought in Zootopia anyone could be anything."

At last they came to the window in the middle, occupied by a male sloth in a celadon green shirt with an orange and black striped necktie and grey trousers. Nick rested his left elbow on the desk, while Judy placed both hands on it like a child waiting for a toy or candy. The other three stood behind them as Nick greeting the ever well-known, orange-eyed Flash Slothmore. True to his name, he was indeed the fastest (but not that fast) of all the other sloths who worked in the DMV. He looked tired but helpful despite his slow speed and metabolism that made him look like a drank a hundred gallons of alcohol.

"Flash, Flash, a hundred-yard dash! Buddy it's nice to see ya!"

As though he were introducing the English language to a foreigner, Flash enunciated his words slowly and carefully with a break in-between.

"Nice…to…see…you…too."

Before Nick could introduce her like a true gentleman (which he never seemed to be), Judy spoke out.

"Officer Judy Hopps, ZPD. How are you?"

"I…am…doing…just…fine….What…can…I…do…for…you?"

Judy clasped her hands together, excited, ambitious and impatient.

"Well, I was hoping if you could run a plate for us? I am in a really big hurry."

"What…is…the…plate…number?"

Placing her arms on the desk, Judy began, quickly to prevent herself from making up for lost time.

"2-9-T-H-D-0-3."

Flash leaned in, lifting his left index finger on the "2" button. He pressed it with a quick "BLINK!" and spoke loudly.

"2…9…"

Judy moved back, thinking that Flash had forgotten the rest of the number, by reminding him rapidly.

"T-H-D-0-3."

Thankfully on her part, Flash was still typing.

"T…H…D…0…"

"3!"

Judy could feel her heart and her veins pumping with excitement, the closing magic number of three was drawing near when Nick took the inappropriate time to speak.

"Hey Flash, do you want to hear a joke?"

Judy instantly covered his mouth with both hands.

"NO! NO UNTIL HE IS FINISHED!"

The other mammals waiting in their respective lines responded to Judy's yell with a natural three second glance before going back to their own business. Sora waited, hands behind his back, Donald whistled quietly to the tune of his own song and Goofy just twiddled his thumbs. As much as they wanted to help, they were certain that Judy and Nick had everything under control. Already understanding this, Flash continued and his long left nail belonging to the index finger pressed the final number.

"3…"

"THANK YOU!" Judy cried raising her hands in the air with a tone of exasperation. But Nick used this as an opportunity to finish his witticism.

"What do you call a three-humped camel?"

He experimented by lifting his index, middle and ring fingers in his left hand. Flash seemed just about as droopy as his eyes when he responded.

"I…do…not…know."

"Before you ask," Nick exclaimed as Judy's ears went down. "A three humped camel is _pregnant!_ "

No one else seemed to hear this other than Goofy, Donald and Sora, who tried to hold back their laughter as Nick did at the same time, much to Judy's menacing glare.

Flash, however, looked stern, taking this as an offense to female camels who were "with child". But then his eyes started to grow wide, along with his smile and he opened his mouth all the way as though preparing to speak his opinion. Instead, he laughed with each "ha!" as three long and crooked sharp nails of his left hand scratched the Carrera marble desk with a small squeal. Yet Judy was still impatient.

"Ha, ha! Yes! Very funny. Can we please just focus on the matter at hand here?"

But Flash was turning his head over to the left by thirty degrees to a female sloth in a reddish-pink sweater, with an even lighter pink shirt and matching cat's eye glasses. She also had periwinkle purple streaks on the frontal locks of her hair.

"Priscilla?"

As the female sloth named Priscilla turned to face him, Judy shouted a "NO!" that was opposed by a "Yes?" from the sloth in question. Unfortunately for the rabbit fuming at the male taking up their time, Flash repeated Nick's joke.

"What…do…you…call…a…three…humped…camel?"

He was in mid-sentence, when Judy threw her arms on the table, shouting.

"A THREE HUMPED CAMEL IS PREGNANT!"

But he still continued and Judy buried her face onto the desk as the joke continued to unfold. She felt like filling in the remainder of the operation herself, but as a temporary officer whose career would end in thirty-six hours if coming back empty handed, she knew her place. Nick, Sora, Donald and Goofy remained patient, yet the three were thinking of looking through magazines on a nearby shelf to help pass the time.

Three hours soon went by without Judy noticing, and at last the details of Mr. Otterton's car (license plate number, owner and address) were printed on a fax that Flash removed with his right hand from the printer. The sound of the paper being removed from its teeth was a crackle of fabric tearing its way to freedom.

"Here…you…"

Judy quickly grabbed the paper with her left hand.

"Thankyou! Gottago!"

She observed the paper when Flash finished.

"This car is issued to…Tundratown Limo Service!"

Then she called to her fellow males.

"Guys, a limo took Otterton and the limo is in Tundratown!"

Hearing this, Sora, Donald and Goofy rushed over to join Judy, who pulled the doors open to discover that the entirety of the parking lot was unoccupied save for the lonely meter maid car, standing where it was with no one to steal it, Judy had the keys after all. Her reaction to now being fully aware of the time change was more shocking than the sloths and the Mystic Springs members combined.

"It's sunset?!"

"Well, I believe it was almost five thirty when we came in," Sora said, remembering the clock on the right wall back inside. "By now, it's probably seven. I guess time really does fly when you're busy."

Judy was enraged, wishing that she could have done the task alone without having a con-fox to delay the transaction with an unnecessary crack that would have been a great insult to female camels everywhere. Now that the task was done, she felt like a whole day had come and gone, diminishing her chances at becoming full-time policewoman to the extreme.

"That fucking sloth just wasted our damn time!"

Nick, as he had been four hours before, remained happy with his half-masted eyes.

"Well, there's no use crying over spilled milk. Now how's about we get to Tundratown and forget this whole 'three-humped camel joke' ever happened."

Judy wanted to cry so badly for the fox that consumed her time with that unneeded comment. Observing him with a shapely glare of rage, she was intending to slap him, but police brutality was least of her concerns and she had no force to do so unless if by command from someone by the like of Chief Bogo. However, she kept a calm face of gratification and walked her way to the car. With Sora and friends behind them on their Rider, the two parties headed north to the wintery interior of Tundratown.


	10. The Miniscule Mr Big

The meter maid cart and the Keyblade Glider made their way to a wrought iron gate, belonging to the parking lot of the long-running Tundratown Limo Service, its logo a black background with school bus yellow font and artwork, depicting a limo above the words "Refrigerated Luxury Limousines", a mountain at the top center above the title and snowflakes on each side. Anything that lay from left to right under a bridge was nothing but a blue fog with two apartment complexes visible before the other buildings that had faded in the haze. Not even the street lights to clear the way for anybody who just stood there, looking into the distance as a result of performing an exercise in futility. Even the sky was not clear enough through the midnight bluish tint. When Judy reached the gate, her hands were observing the lock attached to a chain that had been frosted on the top.

"Closed!" she said at last.

Sora took three steps forward.

"I'll handle this."

He opened his right hand and a beam of light one second later materialized into the Kingdom Key. He took another five steps to the lock and raised the Keyblade by eighty degrees, bringing it down with a swoop. When the teeth made contact with the lock, the hard blow dented the chain piece attached to the lock and a quarter of it flew off, causing the lock itself to fall into the snow. The rest of the chain slithered slowly down into the snowbank, surrounding the lock in an artificial circle. Relieved, Judy, held the gate with both hands and slid it open, the wheel letting out three squeals as it slid its way open to the other side. Judy and the travelling trio walked inside with Nick following behind them.

"And I'll bet that neither of you have a warrant to get in?" Nick asked out of the blue.

"Well, we're in now," Goofy added, shrugging his arms.

"Thank you, Captain Obvious for that most assuring statement. But unfortunately this pretend investigation is likely to get us nowhere."

Judy froze stiff, but from an insult to injury rather than hypothermia, she turned counterclockwise to face Nick, agitated with his poor choice of words.

"It's not a pretend investigation, dumbass, this is real."

He took out the snapshot of the Otterton family with her left hand, turning her tone into that of a pleading mistress.

"In case I didn't tell you before, this otter is missing and his wife is worried sick, maybe even his two boys."

Nick looked closer into the photograph, then moved his upper body back, looking smug as he said.

"Then they should have gotten a real cop to look for him."

Before Sora, Goofy or Donald could hold her back, Judy began to see that she had enough of Nick's smirk that made him look like a lazy, devil-may-care bastard of sadism whose only limits to that sort of torture was verbal abuse. He reminded her too much of Gideon Grey, that is if he were a gentleman whose tactics were only powered by harmful language rather than violence by combat. Fanning her right hand, she swung it and a direct hit came in contact with Nick's right cheek. Nick's jaw reflected his reaction, a sense of violence that he hadn't put up with since the various occasions in his childhood (more about that would be known by Judy and her friends soon enough).

"Does seeing me fail make you happy in your goddamned miserable life?!"

Nick saw the pain in Judy's eyes of anger and dismay, his reply was blunt.

"Yes it does," Nick resumed his slick smile. "Now why don't we leave before some guard catches us breaking and entering."

"Breaking and entering is hardly what I call an investigation when you work with an officer," Donald stated as they walked further into the lot. But Nick was the worse at understanding ducks with quaky voices.

"Sometimes with that voice of yours, I really can't understand what you're saying."

Donald whipped out his mage's staff, his right hand aiming the tip at Nick's black nose.

"Don't make me burn you!"

"Freezing me would be more appropriate. After all we are in Tundratown where the only source of snow falls in Zootopia."

Sora, hearing their short quarrel six feet away, turned his head counterclockwise over his left shoulder, calling back.

"Can we just look for the limo?"

Donald relaxed his staff, mentally dissipating it with his magic. He laughed shyly as he and Nick faced Sora.

At last they found a white Lincoln Town Car at the very end of the lot. Judy in the beginning of her search for the exact license plate, wiped away the frost on one of them with her left hand. The numbers were in pine green with a large orange rock in the center against a white background and yellow and green lining on the edges. To her surprise, matching the wide eyes of discovery, was the registered number "29THD03" in green with the name "Zootopia" printed under it. She read the numbers quickly, realizing.

"This is it!"

Hearing this, Sora's right hand opened the door to the driver's seat and a blast of blue frozen air flew in all directions. It concealed their sight, but cleared when Nick blew some of it away. However, there was still a layer of smoke on the floor, with Judy using the flashlight app on her iPhone to examine the gas and brake pedals. Nick opened the glove compartment and was met with fear in his eyes

"Oh my God!"

"What?"

In his right hand, Nick pulled out two soundtrack covers. The one in front looked like a classic, with a mouse in a black suit and fedora with a slice of a green lime in his left ear and was holding a champagne glass in the hand on that side.

" _The Velvety Pipes of Jerry Vole!_ But on CD, who uses them anymore?"

He tossed them back into the glove compartment, the CDs clattered on the leather of the compartment's interior as he switched back to his laid back attitude.

"Can we focus now?" Sora asked in annoyance.

Judy's stern expression seemed to have agreed with him. But it wasn't long before Nick, rotating his head to the right by five degrees, then fifteen, saw the window to the passenger quarters between the two seats. He slid it open and looked into the dark area of luxury turned into a wreck.

"Carrots, if your otter was here… I think he had a very bad day."

"What kind of a bad day?" asked Sora, looking in-between them.

"Like a bad day where he got so pissed that he tore the whole place down."

Nick's words were hyperbole compared to the minimal damage seen from the light of Judy's iPhone. There were claw marks on the seats and sides, small ones fit for an otter, with some short marks on the bottom and longer lines on the top. The floor was foggy and aside from a glass or two, there were no other personal effects left behind…except for a badge.

"Have you ever seen anything like this?" Judy began to shiver, from the cold, the fear, the supposed attack and the very nature of mystery behind this scene.

"I can't say I haven't," Nick asked.

When her light shined on the badge, she jumped down and picked it up with her left hand. The so-called badge was actually a wallet that had apparently fallen out of Mr. Otterton's pockets during the scuffle of his kidnappers. On the right was Emmitt's driver's license with a cropped version of the family photograph on the bottom left, a red MousterCharge credit card in the middle slot and a blue First National Bank debit card on the top. Judy breathed heavily, her condensed breath camouflaged by the mist.

"He was definitely here," she whispered, fearful that they were being watched by the night porter who kept watch on the cars during closing hours. "What do you think happened?"

Her voice was on the verge of breaking…into terror and the cold that surrounded them in cavernous horrors. Nick was soon looking at the tumbler glass lying on its side and picked it up with his right hand. Turning it over revealed a large medieval "B" above a crown of stripes. Goofy zoomed his eyes onto the letter, curiously.

"What's the 'B' stand for?"

Nick's tone went serious.

"I think I know who this belongs to…Vito Big. The most feared crime boss in Tundratown."

* * *

In a direct contrast to his name, the aptly called Mr. Big was a four-inch-tall shrew whose eyes were covered behind his thick brows and black eyelashes. He was the owner of around fifty legitimate businesses in Zootopia (or at least restricted to Tundratown), starting with a tuxedo store when he was sixteen years old with his grandmother's help. Soon he was the owner of the limo service along with three more business firms and ventures over the next six years, followed by another ten and twenty minor business until he had enough money to support himself, his late wife, his daughter, and several charities out of the pure goodness of his heart. But underneath his civil tongue, he was monstrous and dangerous towards his enemies.

"He doesn't like me after some screw ups in the past," Nick continued. "So we gotta go."

"We can't go now," Judy protested. "This is a crime scene."

"It will be an even bigger crime scene if Mr. Big finds us."

He took Judy under his right armpit and carried her to the door on the other side with the three following them in fear. Nick flung open the door but discovered it was blocked. There stood a duo of enraged polar bear watchmen by the names of Raymond and Kevin, their dark suits contrasting with their fur. Before Sora knew it, he was grabbed by the hood of his jacket, followed three seconds later by Nick and Judy, the bears grabbing them by their throats. They pulled Donald and Goofy out of the car by their ears before they could attack and took all five of them into the backseat of a grey-black Lincoln Town Car that was thirty-eight inches shorter than the limo, driving off into the night.

The three travelers were locked in the trunk, no thanks to the perceived lack of space. Judy and Nick had something even more uncomfortable, stuck in-between Kevin and Raymond with Nick on the right and herself on the left. She looked up at Raymond, holding the black iPhone in his left hand, browsing through Zoogle photos of himself and the limo as one of his favorite pastimes. Among them was a picture of the two bears and a wolf in a magenta colored shirt. They assumed he was a homosexual and nearly suffocated him to death when the photograph was taken by having Raymond press the button and Kevin holding the wolf named Arthur by the throat in his left arm. Raymond chuckled deeply, causing Judy to cower at the intense nature of the bear.

"What did you do to get this Mr. Big guy so pissed?"

Nick kept his eyes on the driver, listening to the Jerry Vole music without so much as making eye contact with his fellow rabbit.

"I may have sold him a very expensive wool rug—that was made from the fur of a skunk's ass…"

His mouth made a small "hiss" as held the very last word. Judy looked up at him, trying to conceal her disgust before turning her eyes back to Nick's direction.

"Jesus H. Christ, Nick. You really are a sick fox!"

"Call me whatever you like, just don't tell Sora any of this. He could lose my trust."

"I'll bet he will," Judy muttered.

Twenty seconds passed after that exchange when the car arrived at the gate of a Georgian styled villa. A polar bear in a suit with a dark carmine necktie standing by the right side of the gate. His head peered to see the limo driving to the main entrance and then stopping by the door. There, Raymond went to the trunk, opening it for Sora, Donald and Goofy, their fur matted from the sweat of the short ride, and the cold exterior did not seem to get through to them.

"That seemed like a short ride," Donald moaned.

"Felt longer to me," Goofy stated.

The two bears pulled them off of Sora, who got up himself. He was followed by Nick and Judy, trying not to express their fears of the mammal they were about to face.

Raymond opened the door to the front office inside, it was decorated with silver sand representing snow and icicles made of glass hung from the fire place. There was a bookshelf on the right with a tall lamp on the opposite of the shelf. In the middle was the fireplace with no flames burning out of it, the top holding an orange vase, an autographed half profile portrait of Jerry Vole smiling in an indigo suit, a golden clock, another orange vase that looked pink in the faded light and a round black and white left profile shot of a female shrew. Above the fireplace was a similar portrait featuring an older female shrew placed between two red candles and a trio of red roses near the right one. On the left was another shelf with a red velvet chair and a wooden desk before them. The ground was made of varying round tiles with three carpets of red, pale lime and orange covering them in front and rear of the desk.

Nick and Judy were pushed onto the red carpet of floral designs, followed by Goofy, Donald and Sora, who was willing to ask why they were here. The question would not have been relevant anyway for there came a bear in a black suit and tie from the door on the right side of the room.

"Is that Mr. Big?" Judy asked in a hushed whisper.

"No," Nick replied. "You'll know him when you see him."

Hearing this, Sora decided not to repeat Judy's question and neither did his cohorts.

The bear was followed by another polar in a Prussian blue tie and a third wearing a black robe and wore a necklace of gold chain to imply his status as a minister. He growled over his tall height as he had to duck when coming down the stairs. His hands were just about as locked as his fellow polar bears as he looked down at the five, sitting down in the red velvet chair. Sora could see the gold ring in his left ring finger, possibly to signify he was an Orthodox Christian. His closed hands pushed four inches forward…and slowly revealed a small swivel chair of chartreuse leather. Turning it around with his left hand counterclockwise, revealed a figure sitting in it: a middle-aged shrew wearing a black suit and bowtie with a red achimenes in his left lapel serving as a boutonnière. His feet were bare save for the white spats. He also appeared to have an emerald green ring on his right pinky.

Judy tilted her head to the left by three degrees while Nick held his breath. Sora was just about as confused as Goofy and Donald were.

"Are you the…great Mr. Big?" the panther asked, not wishing to offend him for his size.

The shrew nodded and aimed his ring at the fox, who kissed the hand with some faltering puckers before his mouth made contact and reversed back to Judy. He held his hands together, smiling for forgiveness.

"This is a simple misunderstanding."

The shrew's voice sounded wheezy, almost shrilling from weak vocal chords.

"You come here unannounced on the day of my daughter's wedding," he spoke looking unperturbed.

"Actually," Nick smirked, rolling his index fingers. "We were brought here against our own will. We didn't know it was your car and I didn't know it was your daughter's wedding today, so…congratulations! Who's the lucky man?"

"A fine shrew named Ronan," the Mafioso wheezed. "But I trusted you, Nicky. I welcomed you into my home eight years ago. We broke bread together, we played cards together, split our earnings together and even Grandma made you a cannoli."

He turned to the cameo of the old female shrew, whose eyes were closed as if in death, she wore a red dress that symbolized death and her features were ancient, about a century old to be exact.

"And now you repay my generosity for the rug, pelted from the rug of a sunk that I did not wish to be killed. To be exact a skunk's ass, you _motherfucker_. You disrespected me and my grandma who I buried in that skunk's ass."

Hearing such profanity being used before his ears, the bear priest named Koslov performed the sign of the cross with his right hand, praying mentally for both the old shrew and cleansing himself from hearing the use of the word "ass" and he was even used to it whenever Mr. Big got into a horrid mood. The shrew was now holding his left thumb and index fingers together as he wagged the hand while resuming to speak.

"I told you never to show your damned face again, but here you are...snoopin' around with a bunny, a panther, a duck and…"

He turned to Goofy.

"What tha' hell are you, a dog?"

"I'm just Goofy," the so-called dog chortled. "We were just visiting when we got caught up with these here fellers."

"And I'm here on the Emmitt Otterton case," Judy barged in, producing the family snapshot in her right hand. "The evidence I found puts him in _your_ limo."

Nick's right hand just covered his eyes into a face palm as Judy leaned closer to Mr. Big until their noses were one-inch part from each other. Sora looked at Goofy, then Donald for signs of anger within Mr. Big's hidden eyes, observing his stature for a soft spot to convince him in a leisurely way. But Judy's judgement towards the mob boss was quick and immediately assumable that he was a wicked man with no empathy in his tiny heart.

"You can intimidate me all you want, but I am going to find out what you did to that poor otter if it is the last thing I do."

Mr. Big relaxed his left hand on his chin, content and lost in thought. His saccharine reply would be soon dripped with a dagger of death.

"And I have only one request…"

A suspicious Sora leaned in by five degrees, a horrified vision coming into his eyes.

"Which is…"

Five seconds later, Mr. Big's lips formed a joyus smile.

"Say hello to Grandmama…"

Then it flipped into a cold frown along with his voice.

"IN HEAVEN!"

Quickly he turned to his bodyguards.

"Ice them!"

Koslov grabbed Sora's wrists while the bear in the blue tie took Donald and Goofy by their necks. Raymond and Kevin took Nick and Judy by the backs of their shirts, the former clawing his hands on the desk.

"I DIDN'T SEE ANYTHING!" Nick babbled. "I won't say anything!"

"And you never will once you're preserved," Mr. Big replied as Raymond lifted the fox from the desk.

The bear in the black tie removed the red floral carpet, revealing a trap door surrounded by salt substituting for the snow. What was originally a swimming pool for rodents now turned into a drowning chamber filled with zero-degree water surrounded by broken blocks of ice. Mr. Big was a very literal shrew, who preferred to have his victims either drown, die of hypothermia or be encased in ice, thus preserving the encased victims who would be set free once he was dead, however.

"If you're mad about me with the rug," Nick went on. "I can give you more!"

This pathetic excuse was nothing compared to what Sora had to witness. He, Goofy and Donald were now waiting their turn once Judy and Nick, hanging from the claws of the polar bear duo would be dropped into the freezing pool that appeared to be a mile deep. Hoping to prevent his friends and relatives from worrying, he began to struggle against the strong Koslov. But it only lasted for a second…thankfully.

"DADDY!" came a shrill voice from the left side of the desk. Judy looked for the source and saw that it was Fru Fru, wearing a white lace dress with a train of silk that spanned her body. Connecting the train was a bouquet of ten white daises, along with the gold earrings she had worn almost three hours earlier, fit for a white wedding that would bond her with her beloved Arthur and his rich family forever until death did they part.

"It's time for our dance!"

She sang-sung as she twirled around in a counterclockwise direction. When she came to a complete stop, she noticed Judy, quivering as she hung from Kevin's left claw like a timid, cowardly bunny. She turned back to her father, hands on her hips with a tone of upset.

"What did I say?! 'No icing anyone at my wedding'!"

Her father opened his hands, shrugging to say the least.

"I have to, baby, Daddy has to."

The bears continued to lower the two, slowly and dramatically. Behind Kevin and Raymond, Fru Fru could see a familiar dog, panther, and duck. Searching her memory, the faces rung distant bells for a second before she suddenly remembered.

"WAIT!"

Then she took a closer observation of the bunny, walking closer to the edge of the desk as she did.

"This bunny and her friends saved my life from that giant donut earlier this morning!"

"And I'm the one who stopped it, thanks to my shield!" Goofy was pointing his right thumb at his neck like a braggart.

"Them?"

Mr. Big was flabbergasted as he directed his left index finger at the three, then to Judy.

"Yeah! Hi!"

She waved her right hand at them as she did. The wedding ring was visible in her left one, shining in gold that was engraved with the House of Big on it.

"Hello…again!" Sora waved back along with a stuttering Judy who added. "I love your dress."

"Thank you," Fru Fru blushed.

Often seeing his daughter as a voice of reason as well as Sora figuring out the boss' soft spot, Mr. Big eventually had a very rapid change of heart, enough for him to gesture.

"Put them down."

Placing his right hand on his heart, Sora breathed a "thank you" to both shrews, then exchanged quick glances to the polar bears and his companions with a relieved smile. Raymond placed Nick down first, while Judy came second with Kevin putting her down, Koslov and the bear in the black-blue tie released their grips on Sora, Donald and Goofy, shoving them to the fox and the rabbit. Mr. Big also placed his right hand on his heart before speaking.

"You have done me a great service. I will help you find the otter."

Fru Fru turned to face the fearless five, her expression symbolizing her father's goodness.

"I will take your kindness. And pay it forward."

Judy leaned closer, Mr. Big kissing his cheeks, much to Nick's surprise and Sora's acceptance.

"For now," he finished. "You are welcome to enjoy the wedding reception."

A minute later, he was posing with his daughter and son in law for the family portrait. All it took was one photo (maybe a bunch) from the shrew in a grey suit with his old fashioned camera. After another minute, Mr. Big and Fru Fru finally had their saltarello dance to the rhythms of Italian traditional music by the likes of the accordion, string banjo and the zampogna. Madeleine and Jemima even had their own dance partners in the form of Arthur's best men, two to be exact. Given the small nature of their size, the reception area was under a gazebo of white curtains and white lanterns surrounding the area, guarded by six polar bears in suits who watched the events taking shape like government agents of security, their objective to prevent Mr. Big from any sort of harm.

* * *

The reception area itself was a circle of six pillars held by paper lanterns on a fifty-inch-wide round table covered under a white tablecloth. A long crescent table was reserved for Mr. Big and the bride and groom among the more important guests of the wedding. Nine other tables, all of them round with seven seats, capped a total of nearly a hundred guests from both sides of the families dancing the night away with chants and cries of good luck and well-wishes to the newlywed couple.

A waiter in a gold tie and a cotton pink vest was carrying a tray of three slices of vanilla cake in his right hand, sophisticated and eyes shut in respect of his station. Nick grabbed the tiny dish, slowing the waiter down for a moment before he skittered away, exchanging the dish from his right hand to the left. He observed his pathetic dish with dismay, before observing the near-microscopic fork in his right hand. Fortunately, before throwing caution to the wind, he plunged the fork in about an inch near the top, scooped it up and brought it into his mouth. The taste was excellent and even Donald had to agree that service was splendid.

"So how are you familiar with Mr. Otterton?" asked Sora, he and the others sitting in middle sized tables saved for larger guests.

Mr. Big sat in the middle of the table, with three shrews, two male and one female on his left discussing fashion and political elections for Zootopia's next mayor. He explained his relationship with the otter in summarized detail.

"Otterton has been my florist for over eight years. He's like a part of the family and I even pay him a fine loan for his own kin. He had something important he wanted to discuss, probably something to do with a flower of some kind, that's why I sent that car to pick him up. But it never arrived."

He looked away from the larger animals, expressing his sorrow and sympathy over the florist. Judy and Nick looked over him, curious.

"Was it because he was attacked?"

"No," the shrew said bluntly to Judy. " _He_ attacked with his own hands."

Judy felt like she was hearing the music fade away from her hearing and it seemed to her that the entire world had gone silent with the impossible chance that someone professional like Emmitt Otterton could turn against his employer, or his associates.

"Why would he attack?" Nick joined in.

"I don't know. They just told me he went crazy, ripped up the car, spilled some glasses, scared my driver half to death,"

The very mention of the word "death" seemed to bring his eyes out of the bushy brows, their color revealed to be as blue as the signature color of goodness and purity.

"…and disappeared into the night."

He gestured the final words by waving his left hand to the distance.

Donald could expect such behavior from his nephews Huey, Dewey and Louie if they acted "wild" and mischievous during their spare time, but this was a serious matter coming from a grown otter. Come to think of it, he was starting to wonder about those three little ducklings and their aunt, his girlfriend Daisy. Perhaps their time with their Uncle Scrooge had softened them, perfected them and made the trio behave better in the care of a billionaire. Shaking the thought aside, he proceeded to ask.

"That can't be the same otter."

"It is," Mr. Big squinted.

Then Goofy added.

"From the looks of his photograph, I can't imagine him as anything but a sweet little otter."

Mr. Big just sighed, expressing his pessimism with short, substantial words that had a deeper meaning.

"My child. We may be evolved, but deep down, we're still animals."

Judy and Nick exchanged nervous glances, and the words seemed to bring some form of cringe to Goofy and Donald. Sora could only ponder the meaning of Mr. Big's words. He reminded him too much of another crime lord who saw the bad in normal people and wanted to replace the population of his home world with its deformities, the mentally insane and the physically broken in order to create his inane sub-culture of oddities and faults. But that was a human matter, so he went on to another subject.

"Is there anyone else who can find Mr. Otterton?"

"Talk to the driver. His name is Renato Manchas. Lives in a tree in the Rainforest District on Tujunga and Vine. Only he can tell you more."

Judy could feel a surge of energy pumping into her adrenaline. With the driver's evidence, she felt like she was one step closer to finding Emmitt and bringing him back to his family unharmed and completely in good health.

"That's just what we need! Thank you Mr. Big…for everything! And tell your daughter I said thank you again!"

And she rushed out of her chair, dragging Nick's right hand with her left. The startled fox's cry of surprise cued Sora, Goofy and Donald to follow after them.

"Thanks for the party!" the panther waved back before he disappeared.

But Mr. Big, who had many enemies that were powerful enough to put his life on the line, breathed in despair. He rested his left hand on his chin and muttered.

"Save it for my funeral."

Thirty-seven minutes had gone by and he hadn't moved from his seat, not even when Fru Fru insisted on dancing with her again for the last time before he and Arthur took the tiny limo to the airport for their honeymoon by the lakes of Mouseburg, telling her that he was recovering the whiskey that he only drank a few sips of every five minutes or so. When the limo did arrive, leaving in the process, Mr. Big could only watch his daughter throw the bouquet of flowers to Madeleine, who was immediately accepting Arthur's friend Ziggy, a refined mouse in a blue suit with a yellow vest. He turned back to his chair nearly shedding tears as he got back. The music had stopped, the party was coming to a final end…and a gunshot rung through the air with screams that caused the polar bears to stand on their guard.

"Sorry I'm late," said the figure of a jester stepping out of the shadows. "Don't bother with me, bears, I wish to speak with Mr. Big."

The figure wore blood red and periwinkle blue, with a right sleeve of orange and red spots, a left sleeve of red and yellow stripes, a frilled collar, a violet torso, a yellow below, indigo pants and rusty red shoes. His hat was attached with two golden bells that rang most of the time naturally as a warning to others and his enemies: a duck with a fitting name…Quackerjack.

Quackerjack grew up as a talented boy who loved the gadgetry, creativity and magic of toys, even in his teenage years. Unwilling to part with his childhood belongings at the insistence of his parents when he was twenty-one, he decided to find a job as a toymaker in a company called Quackwerks. Among his products were his "familiar"; a puppet named Mr. Banana Brain, Mr. History, a talking trivia doll, a Crying Crissie doll that could sprout real tears and a giant teddy bear among other things. He soon developed a rivalry with "Whiffle Boy", a video game company and character brand that had later superseded the sales of his toys by a total fifty percent. Angered and desperate for money to expand his business and the belief that anyone from upper management were plagiarizing his ideas, the duck known as Jack became insanely mad, adopting a deadly alter ego that could use his toys to kill, torture, maim or poison his customers and opposing forces with hidden arsenal. The fact that he was mostly based to his home city of St. Canard had caught Darkwing Duck's eye when he tried to destroy Whiffle Boy for good, only to be put in his place at the hands of the masked avenger by getting eaten by a Gator Gal, a primitive female gator who guarded the lake in Whiffle Town when the two were digitized into the game of Whiffle Boy itself. Eighteen months following that incident, Quackerjack managed to escape by simply climbing out of Gator Gal's mouth and back into the real world, where he was planning to lay low and surprise his arch nemesis with a new line of toys that would make the children go literally… _wild_.

With the sound of the tingling bells fading away, he approached Mr. Big with a sinister grin that seemed to be abnormally big compared to the actual size of his mouth.

"You were not even invited, Quackerjack," Mr. Big reprimanded by wagging his left index finger.

"Oh, Vito, why so serious? Your house is my house as well."

"I may have given you enough money to settle your affairs with the Darkwing guy, but I still know for a fact that you are _insane_."

Quackerjack just smiled wickedly with a long "HA!" and proceeded to speak on his behalf.

"It figures, but why not we get to the matter at hand? Playtime doesn't exist in the world of business, you know."

"Well what do you want with me?!"

He could see that Mr. Big was growing agitated with the way his palms were slowly rising to the level of his chest.

"Just a social call, it's not everyday you get to speak with the other weirdos back home. Your daughter, if I recall just got married as I was coming over, in my opinion, is a real homebody. But in the case of her husband, you can't help who you fall in love with."

"No more cracks about Fru Fru please," Mr. Big held his head with both hands. "I have enough disappointment already. What did you _really_ come all this way here for?"

"I'm looking for my night howlers," Quackerjack said as he sat down in what was previously Judy's chair. "I still have some left over, but I mostly use it for…self-defense."

"Don't look at me, I didn't take 'em. But you wanna know something else, you're the sixth guy who dropped in unannounced."

Quackerjack was curious. So curious, he was desperate to know anything about the night howlers, and with enough information, it became certain that the previous five visitors who actually attended the wedding reception could lead him on the trail of the missing items.

"And who were these others?"

"Some fox, a bunny cop, a panther, a duck and a tall dog come in here after infiltrating my limo, asking for Otterton, I try to ice them, Fru Fru comes in and makes me change my mind, I invite them to the party and I told them where they could find the driver Manchas in the Rainforest District."

"I think I already know where he is, thank you very much. But I have been reading lately about these missing mammal cases and I think it would be perfect if the culprit was the one who took my night howlers."

"What's your obsession with these night howlers?" Mr. Big's face read annoyance on his thin lips. "Don't you have enough money to buy more?"

"What the fuck do you think I am, a florist? When you're dealing with an insane bastard like me," Quackerjack grinned venomously. "Things are never truly logical. But if I were a pest control exterminator, I think I'd like to rid his trunk of certain…pests."

Mr. Big sensed danger in Quackerjack's red eyes of madness.

"Are you going to kill me the same way you kill so many innocents with those toys of yours? Cause once they find out that you're the one who had done the savagery on Otterton, I'll have you iced as well."

The polar bears cracked their muscles overhearing this and Quackerjack lacked a ball bomb that would have deemed necessary to take them all down. With a nervous chuckle, he glanced at the polars, then back to Mr. Big with a friendly tone, which became the façade for his sarcastic undertones.

"Not unless it's…funny. I don't even know where you've been the last time I saw you so…I prefer to keep my hands clean. If Manchas tries anything funny, I'll make sure he thinks twice before double-crossing you."

Mr. Big took this as an offer that he couldn't refuse. His mind was soon wandering on thoughts about Fru Fru and her future with Arthur, caring less about Quackerjack's objective to obtain the night howlers that he believed were his rightful possessions.

"Whatever, just don't kill him. He may have made some wrong turns under my employ, but he's too valuable to die."

"I'll make sure of that. Toodle-loo!" sang out Quackerjack and he bounced away on springs neatly attached to his shoes.

He was likely to get to the Rainforest District before Nick, Judy, Sora, Donald and Goofy and there was only one thing he hoped to expect from Manchas once his job was done:

A nice, big, juicy, smile.


	11. Jaguar Gone Wild

After a day and a half of scouring the city, finding an empty office building with some long forgotten transactions of Taurus Bulba's "business deals", Darkwing decided not to return to the tower until the source of Macawber's Mushrooms could be discovered. He could never really get to sleep without cracking a case, and maybe if he were find shipments of toppings (olives, mushrooms, anchovies and pepperoni among others) he could be able to track them down to the company headquarters if the supposed toppings were shipped back for any reasons concerning health.

"This is one time I could have definitely needed Launchpad's help to divide and conquer."

He muttered to himself as he drove the Ratcatcher on into the night, wishing for some criminal activity to occupy his time in this quiet night of silence.

Then his thoughts went to Morgana.

He remembered the way her aristocratic personality charmed him as Drake Mallard back in the graveyard and how she carried herself with lovely velvet dress of red and her hair black with that stripe of fear waning in the middle. Such a person of that class would be living in a mansion with servants and diamonds to fit her image and he was able to just in front of the first one that met his eyes.

"Funny place to build a condo."

Indeed, the mansion looked out of place in between two apartment complexes. Surrounded by a lawn of grass, it looked to be about six stories tall and in a crooked shape, twisting right at the bottom then left at the top. The paint in the moonlight was a faded white with red roof tiles. It was truly a creative piece of Victorian bed-and-breakfast chic from a Charles Addams cartoon.

"In case she's not here," Darkwing spoke quietly to himself. "I'll just use the process of elimination. For now this is stop number one."

He jumped onto the window of the top floor, certain that Morgana's bedroom was. Peeking into the window, he could make out the details: maroon wallpaper and a queen sized bed with blankets and sheets as red as blood. Two light fixtures on opposite ends and an old fashioned lamp made up the room's source of light. A gothic dresser on the wall before the bed and a smaller, neo-classical version on the left side carried some trinkets, bottles and photographs. His right ear, unknowingly lying on the glass could almost hear a familiar voice.

"I wish I could be more closer to you, Daddy. Help you with your mission."

In need of hearing her more clearly, Darkwing had discovered that the double door windows were loose. He opened them by a crack, slipped in by keeping the windows open at the measurement of his own weight and slid his way behind the curtain, closing the right door window, then the left and thought of surprising the lovely duck with his dramatic "fear of shadow" entrance. This would be accomplished by having him use his cape to camouflage himself within the shadows, resulting an unexpected surprise and a less arduous opportunity to pounce his foes.

Morgana had been doing her rounds all day: visiting the graveyard, selling more pizzas by the pound all over the city and was still supplying mushrooms to outgoing sources within the hours that passed. Now she felt exhausted, but not as exhausted when she came home, straight and refined from putting up with her less agreeable mutant "mushroom" managers who, while loyal to her cause, had their own opinions towards the company's future transactions, stocks and shareholders in ambitious ways that seemed to conjugate with their somewhat cannibalistic behavior. She turned on the light switch and gasped at the fear of shadow, which immediately turned into the mauve figure of Darkwing Duck, standing in a heroic pose of strictness. Calming her heart down to slow beats, Morgana regained composure.

"So you must be the famous Darkwing Duck. I'm sure know me through my company, Morgana Macawber, queen of the mushrooms. I like your cape. Kevlar goes good with flexible battles, but that mask and fedora need work. If you want your identity to be completely concealed from those who try to use deductive reasoning, I suggest buying a helmet and a mask with a voice disguise device."

As she spoke, Darkwing's mind seemed to wander on the forty-five photographs and portraits pinned to the east wall, ignoring Morgana's critique as his eyes took in the details. In the center was an imposing portrait of one familiar figure—Moloculo Macawber—lacking his top hat and coat as he stood there, arms crossed in his crimson vest and golden pocket watch just sticking out. They were the only bright colors that contrasted with his steel fixture. He could even recognize the red eye in his right socket, standing completely out from his normal left eye which was black with a layer of sick green in some shades of light. He walked over to Morgana, who was sitting on the front of the mauve covered bed in a sultry manner, asking her.

"What can you tell me about your father?"

Morgana blinked her eyes, first, then twice. She seemed still and calm with the question, silent for a mere three seconds before she replied.

"Well, it's obvious isn't it? Caring, warm, anything a daughter can expect from a loving father."

"He tried to kill a gangster named Taurus Bulba five days ago."

Morgana stood up from the bed, passing Darkwing and walking over to the dresser to where a dozen bottles of maroon, khaki, cerulean, magenta, ginger, vermillion, chartreuse and puce and a gothic styled goblet lay next to each other in a seemingly perfect order, mimicking the potions used for a witch's cauldron.

"Well, he has a…prejudice against mortals. I suppose he tries to act like a vigilante from time to time to gain the people's trust and perhaps to make peace with the ones who are pure of heart. They're more friendly, innocent and willing to accept people of the supernatural kind."

"I guess that's one element of ridding animalkind of its sins," Darkwing muttered.

He looked away for five seconds, thinking before turning back.

"Where is your father now?"

By now Morgana was holding the maroon bottle in her right hand, while her left hand held the goblet. With steady postures, she tipped the bottle, its contents seen by Darkwing to be wine, and poured the liquid into the goblet. She finished by settling the bottle down and went on to take a swing of the wine before answering the heroic duck.

"He never told me he would be here. He is probably back in Translyvania where I grew up."

Darkwing stomped five feet closer to her, unsure of the legitimacy of her reply.

"I think you're lying, Morgana. You expect me to believe that after trying to take down a vicious gangster he would just return to his homeland? I suppose it could explain why I was never able to catch, though."

He spoke the last part implying teleportation to himself. Morgana squinted her eyes in an angry flash of an outburst before her tone in the following reply went calm.

"HE'S ALMOST A HUNDRED YEARS OLD! He needs his rest."

"I never rest until a crime is finished except for maybe one or two occasions."

"And I thought you were a completely nocturnal duck. _My_ type of guy who appreciates the horrors of the night."

"Well I don't appreciate your lies, I heard you muttering something about you wishing you could be more closer to your dad."

Morgana was shocked. Her tone was offensive and brutal.

"Were you eavesdropping on me?"

Darkwing darted his eyes to the back of his head, mimicking the typical sign of a false truth.

"That, and I can lip-read. I studied it in China."

Then Morgana leaned her head closer to Darkwing's eyes against his personal border. Her eyebrows were now knit together with rage and the eyes themselves were starting to glow red.

"Well read my lips because I have four words for you: Get, the hell, OUT!"

Darkwing was startled, then traumatized by Morgana's yell. He looked at her, still frozen with antagonism in her face and she did not turn her back on him until he did the same. Darkwing was about five feet from the window when he stopped and turned clockwise to her after a second thought.

"Before I go, I want to ask you something…Do you follow your father's orders?"

Morgana's back was still against him, and she was now toying with the goblet, rattling the now half-empty wine silently before taking another sip.

"The way I see it," she spoke, turning her head fifteen degrees to him over her left shoulder. "The only one in this room controlled by his own parents is… _you._ "

Darkwing gaped. It made him believe that Morgana was implying that he was an immature adult. His parents were dead by now of old age or even the alleged murder, and he could not imagine himself being the stereotypical/archetypical example of a penniless duck still living with his mother and father in the basement. He was glaring daggers in his eyes as he replied.

"Was that supposed to be an offense?!"

"No," Morgana smiled, her normal mood resuming. "I just think that with all those gadgets and costumes, I don't even know if you're a real hero, or just some child-at-heart playing dress up to make the world think he is a real hero, when he is a _vigilante_."

Half of Darkwing's persona cooled and unwilling to strike a powerful female down with his own fists, turned away out the window and on into the night. He leapt from the balcony, hopped into the Ratcatcher and drove back to the tower for some much needed sleep against his words.

Now that she was alone, Morgana looked deep into her goblet, reminiscing like she had seen the wine as blood and with a great thrust, threw it towards the wall near the right side of her bed. The goblet flew upside down, spilling its contents of red in a single line that stained the floor and some drops splattered against the wall. Unbreakable as it was, the goblet remained intact as it struck the wall and bounced to the floor, landing at the very edge of the wine trail. Had it been a normal glass, it would have smashed into a hundred pieces. Morgana, now wishing that she had not been so rude to Darkwing with the comment that made him look like a loser as well as her hostile behavior towards him. Perhaps if she had been more open to Darkwing, they could have had a lengthy conversation about themselves, but with her chance wasted, all she could do was drop face first onto the bed, weeping away her sorrows in a state of overreactions.

Then she went unhappily to sleep, in the shade of darkness creeping all around her.

In the Rainforest District, the _Sea Duck_ made her way into the large river, spreading large winds from the propellers over the water and into the trees, blowing the leaves and creepers around in a tornado of green. Baloo and Kit had been airborne since their last refueling stop at the harbor in Tundratown and the plane was almost out of fuel. Narrowing his eyes through the haze despite his fatigue and waning strength, Baloo tried to land in the river down below which seemed to be about five hundred feet wide. He too was familiar with Renato Manchas since his primitive days as a pilot, having introduced him to Rebecca for a place in Higher for Hire in addition to his limousine services and he thought that a chat with one of his old associates would put his mind off Louie's behavior, should he discuss about it.

He lowered the yolk towards the river at an altitude of eight feet, shutting off the propellers and allowing the plane to glide into the water where it bounced five times like a stone skipping across a pond. Kit, still particularly disturbed by Baloo's frustration over Louie, remained tight-lipped for the whole voyage. For starters, he had to get up pretty early in the morning for the second day of the flight to help Baloo with refueling the plane, among other details like checking the ailerons and propellors. Now he was almost sick from the landing in progress, but things began to smooth when the plane cruised the river, coming to a gentle stop under a long bridge of thirty-six floorboards of wood and a hundred feet of rope for a handrail.

"Well, Little Britches, here we are. Home of Renato Manchas. I can only hope he'll be home at this hour."

Kit remained silent for two seconds. The landing to him felt jarring and nerve-wracking as felt glued to his seat and gripping the armrests even though the dangers of air travel had passed. His right hand inched to the seatbelt. Baloo was calling to him by the time he gripped it.

"Well, Kit, are you coming or do you want to stay in the plane?"

"I'm coming!" Kit found his voice, and his left thumb removed the latch from the seatbelt.

Baloo found a fuel dispenser used for seaplanes by the small wooden dock made from oak trees and hooked the _Sea Duck_ onto it, taking the long steps up with Kit following behind.

"So where exactly are we going?" he asked when they were halfway.

"To visit my old pal Manchas in case you didn't hear me the first time. I just hope he can let us stay until Louie gets his cool back."

"For how long?"

"Until Louie leaves of course. I could use someone other than him to discuss our problems."

"Well you have me," Kit said, gripping his green sweater with both hands. "Don't you always discuss your problems with me?"

"I appreciate that," said Baloo, not looking directly at him. "But this is an adult manner, and until Louie can improve his own manners and opinions after one too many ounces of liquor, I'm not speaking to him again."

"He was just drunk, that's all."

"Drunk or not, he needs to resist the effects. I just hope you never drink when you turn twenty one, Kit. It can make you aggressive."

At last when they came to the sign by the bridge before the house, the simultaneous arrival of a rabbit, a fox, a panther, a duck and a dog brought confusion between Baloo and the spiky haired jaguar whose hair matched his skin color.

"Are you visiting Renato Manchas as well? Cause one of you looks like him."

"What does he look like?" the panther asked.

"Like you," said Baloo pointing to him. "But a lot older and he's more of a Hispanic guy."

The panther pointed at himself with his left index finger after three seconds of realization.

"Me?"

"Yeah, you."

"Oh yes, um. I'm Sora by the way. This is Goofy, Donald, Nick Wilde and Judy Hopps of the ZPD."

"I'm investigating the disappearance of one Emmitt Otterton," the female rabbit named Judy said importantly. "And we believe that this Manchas character can provide us with the 411."

"And we're here because my 'dad' got a little…"

Baloo eyed Kit with a wince that held a deeper sense of anger on the inside, it meant that he did not wish to express his personal feelings in front of these strangers.

"…worried that he got sick or something."

"Well, from what I have heard," said Judy. "He was attacked."

"By who?" Baloo's eyebrows rose in surprise.

"Emmitt Otterton himself," Nick muttered in a voice he hoped Baloo would not hear.

But Baloo, to his dismay, did ask.

"Is he all right? Was he hurt?"

"We'll find out once we cross the bridge," Sora said.

He directed his left hand in the direction of the bridge of wood. Judy led the way, taking her right foot on the first step of the bridge, initially fearful of the long drop to the river before continuing on. The walk proceeded to be tedious and balancing in the attempt to regain control of the bridge and prevent it from collapsing. The residence of the driver known as Renato Manchas seemed to have about seventy vines and creepers by a door of wood, which seemed to be surrounded by an Aztec design of brown triangles matching the mahogany wood of the door. Both sides were hidden by vines with more on the right and less on the left.

Judy's right hand pushed the vine away to reveal a silver doorbell button. Her index finger pressed it and the sound of a normal bell, coupled with a racket of clattering sticks and similar sounds regarding the atmosphere of the rainforest. Judy stood back by three feet, asking.

"Mr. Manchas? Judy Hopps, ZPD. Your boss, Vito Big sent us, wanting to know what happened to Emmitt Otterton."

The doorknob rotated, three inches to the right at first, then counterclockwise to reveal a left hand of black fur attached to a gruff, Latino voice.

" _You_ should be asking…."

The group observed his green eye, which was mostly visible compared to his other features.

"What happened to me…"

At the moment he said "Me", the door was shown to be held by a gold chain, and to add further terror to their hearts of valor, saw that the black jaguar's right eye had four four-inch marks on the top and bottom of the eye which was nearly shut save for a sliver of white, green and black that could be seen. There were also a pair of tiny red scars above the right nostril of his nose and he seemed to be wearing a white tank top undershirt.

"What happened to your eye?" Baloo asked once he took a closer look.

"I'm thinking a teensy otter did this," Nick added.

Her voice nearly extracted of breath and shock, Judy whispered.

"What happened?"

The blackavized jaguar just lowered his mouth in a face of hidden fear. But he still went on to answer after a second of silence.

" _He_ did this to _me_!"

He could remember seeing the otter on all fours, biting the fabric off of the top part of the left chair.

"He was an animal! Down on all fours! He was a savage!"

Renato's mind was played in the style of _I Know What You Did Last Summer,_ or some other horror movie that he could not be able to describe, with Emmitt disappearing to the floor and shooting upwards to strike his right eye, but his claws could not remove the eye completely. Instead it just stayed there as he jack-knifed the car to a stop and rushing away to safety. The last thing he could see before his mind faded to white was an evil Otterton, with the teeth of a vampire and orange eyes of a cursed soul.

"There was no warning. He just kept howling about the night howlers, over and over again!"

"What exactly is a night howler?" Sora asked.

Manchas looked away, then back again, thinking about his decision.

"Come inside, we can discuss this in privacy. Even the jungle itself has the ears of a cat."

"Good," Judy smiled. "Then we can tell you more about what we know."

Manchas closed the door, accompanied by the sound of the chain bolt being removed from the lock. There was a crashing piece of glass that came too, which shattered into a hundred pieces, followed by the growls and shouts of the jaguar struggling to contain his excitement. Judy's initial thought was that the jaguar was suffering from a heart attack and would need CPR should he slip into unconsciousness. Timidly, she took one step closer, called out.

"Mr. Manchas?"

Her right hand pushed the door open. With a face of worry turned to woe, she and the other five males saw the dark room with only a golden bed visible. In the center was Manchas squatting on the floor the holding his head in his hands, continuing to growl away at his

"Are you okay?"

Manchas had finally opened his left eye that looked like it had been gouged out by the attack from Otterton, but it was still there, the pupil having turned sharp and a growl that had put him on all fours. He turned slowly to the group, exposing his sharp teeth that forced a hushed "Gawrsh" out of Goofy with fear and panic in his eyes. Baloo could not believe the sight of his compadre turning into what he described ten or so seconds ago, both of their voices were lost and Manchas' vocals just growled with anger and hatred, bringing death wherever he went, just as his forefathers had done one million years ago. Before Judy could connect this to the meaning of the term "night howler", she shouted to her allies.

"RUN!"

They made it past the black mailbox on the left just as Manchas stopped at the doorway with another growl.

Nick rush to the bridge first with Judy in second and Donald in third. The others followed behind in huffed breath, but the rain was coming down with thin sheets making the floor boards a lot less slippery despite the heavy aquatic conditions, but the seven mammals ran on, hoping to out run the jaguar faster than Sora could on his hind legs. Nick shouted as they reached the middle, nearly at the top of his lungs.

"WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH HIM?!"

Baloo answered that question with a dramatic undertone.

"ALL I CAN SAY IS…HE'S GONE INSANE!"

The bridge suffered a heavy vibration when Manchas pounced on it, sending the seven mammals five feet into the air, and Kit's tail was eight inches apart from his munching teeth. It shook right, then left and Judy could sense that Manchas was about to pounce. Kit ran into the safety of Baloo's arms as Mancha slept, and Judy, seeing no chance of fully escaping the wild jaguar, leapt off the left side while Nick took the right. Manchas jumped over Baloo and Kit to Donald, Goofy and Sora, who turned just in time to summon the Keyblade and Manchas bit his teeth into grey saber.

Down the two came onto a branch of green moss, with Judy landing on her feet and Nick on his stomach, which would have cracked his ribs if the impact had been harder. Sora's wrestle with the wild jaguar provided him with the extra strength he needed, by thrusting his arms and legs forward and forcing Manchas to release his teeth from the Keyblade, sending him into the air. In quick movements, Judy immediately sensed the jaguar and grabbed for Nick right arm with her left. The fox was standing up just in time to avoid Manchas' snarling teeth and claws that left scratches on the branch, hurting the tree it belonged to, but fortunately didn't break under the weight.

Donald could see them far below, and had to find a way for the mad jaguar to stop…literally. He thought a good freezing spell would put him ice if he stood still for at least three seconds, so with the mage's staff in his right hand, he held it back by twenty inches and fired. The piece of crystalized ice that came from the hat of the staff shot towards Manchas, getting closer until the chances were slim. Donald feared with gritting teeth that he would miss, but he was soon smiling when he saw the tip of the tail turning ice blue with some frost coating the black fur. Manchas yelped in pain and continued on.

Hiding in a log, Judy's right hand brought out the golden light of a walkie talkie, which she shouted into it as loud as her voice could go.

"Officer Hopps to dispatch!"

At his desk back at headquarters, Clawhauser had a lazy afternoon. He discussed personal matters as well as some positive gossip with Bonkers. Other officers came and went, discussing short matters until he had less to do and by now he was dealing with a wolf who had recently been arrested. The apprehended wolf was a sixteen-year-old juvenile delinquent named Warren who wore a pink shirt with a magenta line in middle, which he had bought off the rack at a female clothing store in Tundratown. This was insufficient evidence to prove that he was a homosexual, for he had been participating in an LGBT movement over by City Hall and sparked a small riot by striking the head of a polar bear officer, who turned just in time to grab the young wolf's shirt. Warren wasn't that violent though and he had been spared the inconvenience of wearing a muzzle for that reason, since the only thing he attacked was a blow to the officer's head with both hands holding a sign that simply read "Please Support Gay Voters" in Elephant font.

Warren was met with further harassment from Clawhauser who was showing him a Gazelle related app on his iPad. It simply had Gazelle dancing the tail feather against a light purple background that turned pink at the bottom.

"Are you familiar with Gazelle, greatest singer of our lifetime, angel with horns?"

Warren shook his head no. He preferred lesser known bands instead of overrated celebrities no matter how talented they were.

"Okay, hold on. Keep watching."

He was holding the screen to see his smiling head manipulated and animated on a tiger's body wearing nothing but trousers that glittered silver in-between those black tiger stripes.

"Who's that beside her? Who is it?"

Then the app spoke in an electronic version of Gazelle's voice.

" _Wow, you are one hot dancer, Benjamin Clawhauser._ "

"It's me! Did you think it was real? It looks so real! It's not, it's just a new app-"

As Clawhauser spoke, Bonkers could see the red light blinking from the intercom, which meant a warning. Thinking that Clawhauser would be too busy to answer it, he walked on over, passing the wolf and the unsuspecting cheetah that seemed to weigh about three or two hundred pounds. His right index finger casually pressed the call button down, and before he could say so much as a "hello?", Judy's screeching voice came on the other line.

"CLAWHAUSER?!"

Clawhauser's adrenaline pumped rapidly, almost to point of losing every ounce of nerve in his body when he heard Judy's screams. Bonkers thought he had gone deaf from the cry, for all he could hear was a ten second buzz before his hearing went back to normal.

"Clawhauser, listen to me, we have a 10-91! Jaguar gone savage! Vine and Tujunga!"

"Okay, we're sending backup."

The two cheetahs rushed to inform their fellow officers.

Back in the Rainforest District, Sora, Donald, Goofy, Baloo and Kit followed the three chaser from the safety of the main road. Sora could make out Judy dropping her walkie talkie, noticing a yellow light falling down from her branch and into a large green tree of tropical leaves. The five soon found themselves at a long thirty-foot board with three yellow lines of triangles going left at the bottom, right in the middle and left again on the top. Three street lights lit the platform in a lonely glow. Over the edge of the platform were a pair of Kelly green boxes known as sky trams, used for transporting people from the Rainforest District to Savannah Central to Downtown to Tundratown and back again. Judy thought that the barriers used to prevent others from falling off the platform would be perfect for using her handcuffs on Manchas as a pole to keep him from running off. As a police officer, she needed solid proof for her superiors.

Sora and the four pure animals watched Manchas chasing Judy to the left, then to the right of the platform. Goofy thrusted his right arm forwards, throwing the shield and the wild jaguar who turned right when Judy did the same. The shield bypassed Manchas and circled back to Goofy as the rabbit spun around on an olive green pole flying off and sliding against the west platform to the edge of the other side, struggling to regain her footing. But her hands could not stop the rest of her body in time and when Goofy caught the shield, he tried another tactic: an intention to bonk Manchas in the dome of his head. The slippery enforcement of the water caused by the heeling upwards position of his right foot surged him forwards, yelling all the way until he collided with Manchas' rear end and the shield came down. It collided with Renato's crown hard, the reaction of his eyes going wide and then the rest of his body collapsed.

Now having gained the opportunity to pull herself back up against the slippery substance, Judy took out the handcuffs in the rear of her belt, ran up to hook the right one onto the strong pole and latched the left one onto Manchas' left hind leg. The chain was long and hard, mostly used for arresting larger criminals like elephants, rhinos and bulls. The cuffs were practically made of chrome steel, used at the exact size to prevent the larger animals from escaping. Yet Manchas was starting to recover from the blow, and Nick who had reached the nearby sky tram, was running for dear life past him. Judy raced alongside him as he growled his way to freedom. The others followed suit to the street and they were screaming their way to the bottom of the district, certain that they would leave Manchas in the capable hands of the police force while they made a quick getaway in the _Sea Duck_. At a three-way crossroad, the silence had turned into the sirens of four police cars, lighting up the entire street with their headlights of white, red and blue that nearly blinded the seven mammals. Judy smiled, hoping that when she presented them with the wild jaguar, she would most likely be promoted to sergeant. Nick's initial thought before realizing what they had come for was…

"Shit, it's the bull."

And speaking of a certain bull, Chief Bogo stepped out of the shadows to the seven, crossing his arms in a great display of pride and prejudice towards the prey and predator in front of the other mammals. The police lights of red and blue chased around his horns, turning into various shades of the color purple. The brighter headlights shined into outlines against the red and blue for a brilliant effect of color hidden against his burly body.

"This should be good."

He sucked the natural air of the rainforest into his nostrils, which sounded more like a growl than the average bull taking in a whiff of fresh, regular air.

It took the police twenty minutes on foot to reach the sky tram platform with Judy leading the way. The other officers hiked the whole way with maturity, rather than using the cars to make their way up just to save on gas, as well as gas money. Chief Bogo, going behind Judy, could hardly believe the rabbit's words when they were about ten feet away from where they left Manchas.

"I thought this was just a missing mammal case, but it's way bigger. Mr. Otterton did not just disappear. I believe he, and Mr. Manchas, the jaguar went…savage…sir."

Sure enough, Chief Bogo was hard to please. He scoffed at the absurd idea.

"Savage. I can assure you, Hopps, that we are not living in the Stone Age anymore."

"I'm well aware of that, sir. That is, until I saw…this."

When she spoke again, she was in front of a large pair of green soaked leafs. When she finished, she pushed the leaf in front of her back with her right hand…to reveal the desolate sky tram platform. Chief Bogo rolled his and Judy could see for herself that Manchas had disappeared into thin air along with the handcuff, which was impossible unless _someone_ had moved him. She felt shocked, unprepared for humiliation. Her hands gestured to the exact spot where he once stood, snarling and growling, it wasn't like he could have just jumped off since the pole remained undamaged.

"He was right here!"

"The savage jaguar?"

Chief Bogo's face looked more forlorn than glum, but he was actually unimpressed. A hint of mocking could be heard in his voice as Judy jumped away to the scene of the capture.

"Sir, I know what I really saw! He almost killed us!"

Behind her, Chief Bogo stopped. He was still not convinced and was beginning to believe that he had performed an exercise in futility.

"Or maybe any aggressive predator looks 'savage' to rabbits?"

Judy turned to face him, drooping her ears. The chief turned back to his men over his left shoulder.

"Let's go!"

Then Sora came up with Baloo, Goofy, Donald and Kit.

"Sir, please reconsider! We saw him too! And so did Nick."

Nick, standing in-between a tiger and Officer McHorn, took five steps forwards, smiling professionally. But Bogo did not seem to take this as a serious manner. He was still stubborn and reluctant to accept the bunny's words.

"You expect me to believe this fox?" he fumed.

"He-they were key witnesses."

Bogo, tired of being tricked and conned by a rabbit who he perceived was acting like a child. He knew that she was telling half the truth and his evidence had escape from his hoofs.

"I gave you two days to find the otter and you have failed."

He extended his right hand, opening it.

"Now hand over your badge."

Nick watched Judy, torn in-between his selfish and selfless sides. He pulled a small smile, his selfish side wanting to masochistically enjoy her being demoted or discharged, but then it dropped into a frown, expressing his selflessness. His emotions towards Judy were starting to grow on him, but he knew that he could never love another species, not even if he learned to. At this point, he was seeing Sora, Donald, Goofy, Baloo and Kit as his closest friends since yesterday and Judy was at the top of his list.

"She won't."

Chief Bogo creaked his head to the right by twenty degrees. His reply was slow and seething with his teeth clenched.

"What did you say…fox?"

"You heard the fox," Baloo added. "He said, 'she won't'."

Nick stepped up to Chief Bogo, strong and true. Sora, crossing his arms with a respectful smile, watched the fox give out his spiel of the events that occurred so far and changed Judy's life forever.

"You gave her a clown vest and a goddamn three wheel 'jokemobile', and now two days of a case that you guys haven't cracked in two weeks? It's no wonder she needed help from a fox, a panther, a duck, a dog and two bears whom we just met thirty minutes ago. But were any of you going to help her? Huh?"

Chief Bogo narrowed his eyes at Nick, giving him the silent treatment as he was allowing the fox to continue.

"I thought not. You did this to her because you not only think she's an everyday female who doesn't have intelligence to even vote, but a bunny who can easily get killed, and that's a combination of sexism _and_ racism…and all for not good reason. But here's the thing chief: you gave them the forty-eight hours and we still have about ten hours left to find Mr. Otterton and bring his kidnappers to justice."

"And that is what we plan to do," said Judy, finding her voice and her strength to walk two steps forward. "And, since I left the cart back in Tundratown I can either take the sky-tram—"

"Or," Baloo cut her off. "You can come with me and Kit on the _Sea Duck_."

Judy turned to the bear pointing his right thumb at his Adam's apple for a boastful posture.

"I was just about to say that."

"My apologies"

She thought about it for a second. The sky-tram with its light shining from the roof passed through the foggy atmosphere, but after all her travels by car, by train and even walking, she wanted to fly for the very first time.

"Well, I have never been in a plane before."

That was all she said and with a salute from Nick's right hand, they were off down to the dock where the _Sea Duck_ waited. Its wings were soaked with rain and the engines would need another moment to dry before they could take off again. Baloo went in first, Kit second, Sora, Donald and Goofy in third and Nick, trying to improve himself as a gentleman of his word, opened the closed door for Judy. He spoke to her, politely and in a manner of sophistication that surprised the bunny after every offense he had given her.

"Officer Hopps?"

Her right hand took his left and her right foot was all the way inside the cargo area, taking in the rest of her body and when her ears were inside the plane, she turned counterclockwise back to him and said.

"Thank you."

Sora, Donald and Goofy smiled at Nick's improvement, then Baloo asked.

"So, where do you wanna go?"

"Maybe back to City Hall," said Judy. "We'll get there by morning and we can ask Mayor Lionheart for assistance about these night howlers."

Kit turned his eyes to Baloo, then darted them to Judy, lost in thought and doubt.

"Do you think he'll be able to help?" the cub asked her.

"I guess, until I can think of someone else."

She sat down on the left seat of the passenger area opposite to Sora and felt the plane's engines start. It rattled and disturbed Judy's ears of advanced hearing and she feared that the plane would explode before felt a vibration. The plane was moving backwards; away from the harbor and then forwards where it picked up speed, faster and faster until the bottom was free from the river and the plane was now airborne. Judy tried hard to ignore the buzzing noise of the rapidly spinning propellers by covering her ears, but Nick, Sora, Goofy, Kit, Donald and even Baloo were used to it, having travelled on much smaller planes than this. After three quarters of a minute, she released her ears and sighed deeply as she felt the air of the plane clear her mind, remaining stiff and content from her giddiness of solving the case as she tried to resist any future signs of turbulence.

Chief Bogo and his men watched as the _Sea Duck_ travelled upwards, heading back after a mere four minutes for a long needed rest.


	12. A Friend in City Hall

The _Sea Duck_ flew her way into the sunrise of gold, the sun shining against the pink and purple that faded into the clouds. Sora could hardly realize that a whole day had passed and neither could Judy when she looked out the window. The sight of the city at one past seven in the morning looked calm and gentle like there was no activity at all and no pedestrians were in sight. Baloo had been circling around the city for a minute, looking for a place to land. He tried to find the river that bordered the outskirts of Bunnyburrow to the Downtown area as the sun peaked out behind the skyscrapers and rose up to transform the sky into its natural shade of blue, the blue that made the ocean blue due to its reflective nature. She turned back, facing towards the pilot's seat, then across to Nick on the other side, smiling apologetically.

"Thank you, Nick."

"You're welcome. But never let them see that they get to you."

"I'm sorry that I slapped you."

"It's nothing. I was used to it."

Ten minutes of reminiscence passed and no one spoke a word until Judy asked another question.

"So…things do get to you?"

Nick shook his head.

"Not anymore, but I was small…and emotionally unbalanced like you once upon a time."

"I don't believe you. You seem so funny."

Nick did not realize it yet, but in another minute, he was progressively giving out his life story, or at least starting the tale from a certain age.

"Well, it all started when I was eight. Dad was in the tailor business and he wanted to open up a suit store for all the mammals. He called it 'Wilde and Son's Suit-topia'."

"Pretty neat name," Goofy replied, listening with right ear raised all the way up.

"He wanted a loan just to make it all happen but the damned moose wouldn't pay us. He thought it was ridiculous. And that's when my mother came in, suggesting that I'd join the Junior Ranger Scouts. I thought it would be fun, going on camping trips and singing songs by the fire like I heard about in all those stories. The counselor was reluctant at first, since the Junior Rangers Scouts are prey only, but she said 'Nick's a little angel. He would never harm anyone.' The guy agreed and my mother scraped enough money to buy a brand new scarf and uniform. I was going to fit in."

Sure enough he remembered his eight-year-old self, running in to join the other scouts on a dark night of innocence. Pack nine hundred and fourteen was male only, consisted of a zebra, a hippo, a woodchuck, a buck and a brown colt. They greeted him warmly, as warm as the light that shined above them…with no ulterior motives.

"Did you fit in?" Judy went on to ask.

"What became an oath that led me to a dream of improving my independent skills turned into a nightmare. They put a muzzle on me just because I was a fox. I was so proud, but they were all like 'You think we could ever trust a fox without a muzzle?' and 'You're even retarded than you look'."

The words brought a silent gasp from Judy and fellow audience members. She wanted to cry for him, rest her head on his left shoulder and sympathize with the fox who was just about her age when Gideon Grey gave her that infamous scar that did not completely heal until three weeks later.

 _You did well, my young scouts._ He could remember the diktat voice of the bull counselor taunting him in a proper voice that made the scouts sound like spoiled pricks. _Anyone should know that predators are NEVER allowed in the Junior Ranger Scouts._

"Some counselor he turned out to be. That bastard. He gave me a serious nosebleed."

Donald could imagine the counselor's right foot striking the poor fox cub's nostrils. Blood was soon gushing from it, bringing a serious work of pain to his mind and the entirety of his body.

"He kicked my ass out of there shortly after. They jeered at me, they laughed at me, they started to hate me and all I could ever do was cry, cry, cry."

His words went from childish to adultish; pure, mature and straight.

"But I learned two things on that day. The first thing was that I was never going to let anyone see that they were going to get to me and the second thing was that if the world was only going to see a fox as a shifty, untrustworthy son of a bitch who steals and cons people out of their money, their life and their dignity, that I'm sure as hell that there is no point in being anyone else."

Now Judy's sympathy for Nick had relaxed. before she could answer however, Sora expressed his own sympathy for the dejected fox turned away from a society that was prejudiced and demanded perfection in a way similar to racial issues in human worlds.

"What did you tell your parents?" he asked, expanding the subject.

"WHAT DO YOU THINK I TOLD THEM?!" Nick shouted as if it were the most offensive thing in the world. "My dad was suffering from cholera and my Mom wrote an angry letter to the counselor, but he was on their side. He told her that predators weren't allowed in the Scouts anyway and he even told me that if I ever set foot again on a prey only establishment while I was still a kid, he would have me, _legally_ , removed from my parents."

"I can't imagine him going that far."

Sora could imagine a similar scenario with Master Xehanort when he discovered his older brother Ventus, but instead of legally removing him from his family, Ventus was abducted. Nick continued, moving on to his commencement as a conman.

"When I turned twelve, Mom got sick during my birthday party. Dad was already dead and she had caught his cholera just one week before he died. It wasn't until thirteen days later when she finally kicked the bucket and rather than submit myself to an orphanage, I found Finnick from my elementary school days. He and I were kindred souls of a sort, kicked out because of our 'foxy' ways, so he and I decided to get back at those who defied us by conning them out of their money."

Sora's eyes went to the window, taking a second glance at the sunrise and the traffic down below. He interpreted their cerebrums as nothing more than a prey restricted zone of arrogance and supremacy and he turned back to face Nick with a guilty frown that displayed his compassion.

"So you became a con artist all because of that?"

"Yep. I wanted to open up a theme park called Wild Times, but no loan office in the city could give me what I needed to open it up and complete it. So Finnick and I, realizing that it was too much of a crazy dream, decided to do regular jobs like selling those pawpsicles."

Judy smiled, turning her head away. Now she felt like a jerk, replaying the events in her head; the shit-eating grin, the three humped camel joke that delayed their time, the naturist club, the wedding and even their first meeting, the meeting that would eventually initiate one crazy adventure to find the missing Emmitt Otterton.

"Nick…you are so much more than that."

She walked right over and smoothed her right hand against his right arm, gripping it with a steady stroke. In that moment of softness and care, Nick turned his eyes to Judy, and avoiding his reciprocated sympathy, went back to his normal mood like he had faults that never happened. He looked down at the twisting highway; cars were crammed were their horns blaring at each hour. It was a typical view of the rush hour traffic.

"I wonder how things are looking on the jam cams."

"Jam cams?" Judy asked curiously.

She looked out from his view, with Sora, Donald and Goofy looking behind over their shoulders, their heads rotating slightly and leaning forwards or back for a better perspective.

"You mean there are cameras that watch the traffic?" Goofy seemed to be aware of such things, but he wasn't entirely sure.

Sora, the smartest of trio as always, lit up his face with a beam.

"Maybe whatever happened to Manchas, the traffic cams would have caught it."

"Sora, you are a genius!" Judy cheered, then she called to Baloo. "Pilot! Keep on course for Savannah Central! I have a friend in City Hall who can help us."

"Will do, Miss."

And he steered the yoke to the left, towards the river and close to the bridge where the trains ran. It flew over the departing Zootopia Express, gliding over the river like knife about to plunge its way into a very large cake (that is if the cake was a sea of blue frosting). Once the plane made contact with the river, it sped on for another mile until slowing down at the Watering Hole, a harbor station with four large piers. The _Sea Duck_ came to a progressing stop in-between the second and third piers, the wooden wall acting as a buffer to bring the plane to a complete stop. As before the now gentlemanly Nick let the door open for Judy to go out first with Goofy, Donald and Sora following suit. Baloo, unsure of wanting to go back yet, decided to stay in case someone else nearby would need his assistance. He was indeed planning to return, but not until the last day when Louie was ready to leave and completely refreshed from his drunken slurs. Sora was the last to step out of the plane, waving his right hand back to the bear.

"Thanks for the ride, Baloo!"

"If anyone asks, be sure and tell 'em Baloo von Bruinwald XIII sent you."

Mayor Lionheart had a rough day. His business associates Beaumont, Caspian and Hale were of little help in his current meeting to discuss his successor once he stepped down from office. At forty-eight years of age, his career, in his own opinion, was hardly over and he was fuming to the breaking point. When Assistant Mayor Bellwether suggested taking over as the "higher" mayor should anything happen to him, Lionheart could only care less about her opinions since he had been locked in his own affairs with the city council in the boardroom while she herself just stood there by the door, listening and not daring to further intimidate her employer. Further pressure from updates about the missing mammals, the unauthorized use of bear traps and legislations regarding predator control…something that Miss Bellwether had favored in mind…only forced him to storm out of the conference room with the meek assistant following him.

As of that moment in question, she was unsteadily balancing a total of twelve binders, labelled with the political topics of management services, parks and recreation, a second volume of management services, library services, budgets and proposals and public works at the bottom among other topics. She believed that a good overview of the documents would put him in a state of gratification. By the time the meeting was finished, Bellwether rushed back to her office to collect the documents, pursing Lionheart through the green walled and wooden pillared corridors of City Hall as she tried to keep herself steady. She could have taken a few, but her conscience insisted on taking all twelve of them. Had she taken thirteen of them, she would be committing a sign of bad luck.

"Sir, if we could just review these very important documents—"

She was cut off by the arrival of a mouse in a monochrome grey suit named Felix who worked in the Little Rodentia division as a senator's aide. He squealed when he saw Bellwether's right foot about to step on his tail.

"Sorry," the meek sheep apologized.

But Felix just shook his right hand at her while she continued.

"Sir!"

Now furious, Lionheart turned counterclockwise to face her, feeling more than a bit pissed.

"I HEARD YOU BELLWETHER!"

His right hand stacked the binder labeled "Community Development" on top of the first one, adding up to thirteen binders that started to put some strain onto Bellwether's weight, going against her own strength as she tried to balance the binders.

"And clear my afternoon," Lionheart made his final order. "I'm going to have lunch at the Rainforest Café at one."

He walked towards the large oak doors that led to his office. Miss Bellwether could see two sheets of paper slipping from the community development binder, quickly grabbing them in her left hand and skittering over to the doors, still trying to reason with the distressed king of the forest.

"But sir, you do have a meeting with Herds and Grazing—"

The doors slammed shut as she took the chance to run. But just as her nose made contact with the doors, the binders having switched to her right hand struck the oak hard and flew above her as the thirteenth binder crashed into her nose. Seven documents flew in all directions as Miss Bellwether landed on her feet, sliding backwards by eight inches and finally landing on her tail, moping over the papers and binders surrounding her little circle.

"Mutton chops."

Judy noticed that she was wearing an orange shirt embroidered with yellow cornflowers and a dark navy blue jacket when she saw the events take shape. The group was not too far behind from the two officials when the mayor left the conference room and all Judy could do in retaliation for helping her take charge of the Otterton case was by helping her pick up the "Budgets and Propsals" binder while she went with the first two. She did not receive Judy's attention until the bunny spoke.

"Hello again, Assistant Mayor Bellwether."

"Well, hello again, Judy," her face started to light before her eyes went to Nick. "And who is this?"

"Nick Wilde," the fox extended his right hand to her.

"The pleasure is all mine," the sheep said once her left hand gripped his right.

There was a hint of a dark undertone in Bellwether's voice, and it was not because of Nick's shit-eating grin, which he was reclaiming in full once they were inside the building. Almost immediately, she resumed her friendly, librarian-type attitude, flickering her eyes as she asked in the proper tones of one librarian that Judy knew back in her elementary school.

"So what brings all five of you to City Hall?"

"We would like to use the traffic camera system," Sora spoke. "It may help us with the Otterton case."

Bellwether spoke up after a second of darting eyes left and right at a rapid pace.

"I know just the place," she said lifting her left index finger to the ceiling. "My office."

The office of Dawn Bellwether was located on the ground floor behind the iron door of an unfairly water closet seized backroom since no other rooms were available when she first applied. In fact, it was originally a janitor's closet until custodian duties were relocated to the east wing of the building upon Bellwether's arrival. The thin looking iron door had a rectangular window with grid caging, underneath was a sign which read "Office of the Assistant Mayor" in a black font, held down by four seven inch pieces of white tape on each corner, with a four-inch yellow sticky tape labelled "Please Knock!" placed at the bottom of the sign in a twenty-degree angle pointing downwards. Sixteen boxes on the right and eighteen boxes on the left were identified by numbers written in black on white labels and each box was stamped with the word "URGENT" in a faded red stencil font. When Sora first laid eyes on the exterior, his reply to something so insignificant compared to Bellwether's position was.

"I was expecting something larger."

"Wait until you see the inside," the sheep told them. "It's a lot smaller than you think."

Sure enough, when she pulled the door handle down with her right hand, opening it, the interior of the office felt a lot smaller even without the objects in the way. It was dimly lit with a computer at the very end with a desk of Miss Bellwether's personal effects, like a pencil, an intercom and a mug. Three metal drawers stood looking discolored of a dark messy olive on the right with twenty more boxes on the left. Also on the right was a round cylinder shaped boiler which seemed to rattle at times, but she didn't mind. Above the computer desk was a shelf of twenty-one boxes and binders and a column of five more dark military green metal drawers on the right with a short amount of two more on the left. Also on the left near the computer was a three-foot step ladder and a cart with a small white teacup and saucer on the top.

"So what was it that you wanted to look for?" asked Bellwether, rotating her head back and forth.

"The traffic camera database," Judy reminded her.

"Got it."

There was no sound in the room other than the rattling of the boiler and the typing of the keyboard from Bellwether's hoofs. Nick was unsure of how long it would take, for after the first ten seconds his right index finger was hovering over her large roly-poly bulge of white curly hair. The finger made contact with the external layer, but before it could dive deeper into the mass ball of fluffy cotton or even for Judy or Sora to notice, the sheep turned to the bunny, asking.

"So which location."

"Rainforest District. Tujunga and Vine."

Miss Bellwether typed in the co-ordinates. The screen zoomed in to the turquoise colored area representing the Rainforest District towards the island where the address resided. A total of fifty-one yellow markers with a black camera icon appeared on the screen with most of them belonging on the island, some of them going to others of little significance.

"There. Traffic cameras for the whole city!"

She placed her hands on her white shirt with black polka dots, clutching the top to express her burst of positive emotions.

"This is so exciting, I never get to do anything this important."

"But you are the assistant mayor," Judy smiled. "Why shouldn't you be doing more important stuff like this."

"I'm more of a glorified secretary," Miss Bellwether admitted, looking guilty as she rubbed her hoods on the desk. "Mayor Lionheart just wanted the sheep vote. But he did give me that nice mug just so I could be appreciated."

She gestured her right hand to the white mug with three violet pens, two regular ones, a purple pen, one black, and five blues of varying shades. On the front was "World's Greatest Dad" written in Cooper Black with the "Dad" part at the bottom poorly crossed off by a squiggly line of violet and directly above with was "Assistant Mayor" which was also written in the same shade. Sora, Nick, Donald, Judy and Goofy exchanged nervous glances, taking to the realization that Bellwether had written it herself to prevent embarrassment from her professional side, taking to account that considering Lionheart to act as a father-figure on an emotional scale would only distract her from work.

Suddenly, there was a beep from the intercom, followed by the voice of a raging volcano named Leodore Lionheart.

" _SMELLWETHER! I THOUGHT YOU WERE GOING TO CANCEL MY AFTERNOON!_ "

"Smellwether?" Sora's eyebrows went wide, while Donald and Goofy slammed their ears shut at the lion's roaring voice. Nick and Judy could only glace at each other just as Bellwether chuckled apprehensively with a reply.

"Oh, that's just a fun little name he likes to use. I once called him Mayor Lionass once and that was not a very good day for me."

With every word she spoke, her right index finger inched closer and closer to the intercom and pressed the reply button down, speaking into it.

"Yes sir?"

Mayor Lionheart's voice had calmed down by just a touch.

" _Tell my hairdresser that I'm not getting my haircut this afternoon!_ "

The poor sheep was now fretting as she closed her hands.

"I'd better go," she said, taking her leave from the red swivel chair. "Let me know what you find."

She was halfway out of the room, when she turned back, all eyes following her as she clasped her hands together and made a sweet farewell that ended up being than she expected.

"It was really nice being with you…"

And again there came the loud voice of Mayor Lionheart, shouting.

" _WHILE WE ARE YOUNG, SMELLWETHER, YOU FUCKING SHEEP BITCH!_ "

Miss Bellwether flinched. It wasn't the first time she heard her employer use such foul language within her hearing range. He only used profanity if he was in such a mood like anybody else with their own personal problems and it was a fact of nature to be taken into consideration, for being a predator, there were rumors about Lionheart being a dangerous lion who went out of his way to even kill somebody just to get results. Hearing him, Bellwether hurried left and right in a frenzy, finding the door, pulling the handle down with both hands and rushed to the other side just as Goofy's right hand waved goodbye.

Now alone, Nick, Judy and Sora faced the computer, wondering what to find next before the fox asked out of curiosity.

"Do you think she counts herself to sleep?"

"Now that I'd like to see," Sora muttered with a stinted laugh. "Right now, we have to look for the camera at…Tujunga and Vine?"

"That's right, Sora. Tujunga and Vine."

Judy placed her right hand on the mouse as she said this, moving the arrow on the screen that turned the yellow marker on the far right to red. The screen labelled "Rainforest District Cam+115" on the bottom left corner showed herself and Nick running from Manchas on the branch. The sight nearly brought back a bad memory for Judy, but she remained calm as she clicked the right mouse button to "Cam+122" for Nick standing in front of the perilous jaguar, then to "Cam+97" for a view of the entire platform where a black van came on the edge of the right screen and out from the door of the van came a white wolf with a brown one in deep blue uniforms.

"Who are these fellers?" Goofy asked.

"Must be some kind of animal control service," replied Donald.

"Or it could be something else," Nick finished in a sotto voice. "These guys are obviously Timberwolves."

The Timberwolves now stood on their guard, ready to pounce on Manchas, with the white furred fellow holding his hands up in defense. A quick three seconds later, the one in brown fur holding what looked like a royal blue colored rifle, shot off a net, a big strong net that was able to resist damage from predator claws, right onto the wild jaguar. He tried to break free, but his efforts were in vain as he was dragged into the van. Things started to click for Judy at very moment the van on the screen drove out of view.

"If those guys took Manchas," she realized. "Maybe they took Otterton, too. All we have to do is find out where they went."

At the precise second the van passed a bush on its way out of the district, clicked the right mouse button to another view of the van driving by a three-way crossroad where a taxi cab stopped at the front to let it by. Another view had the van going into a tunnel with the green and yellow sign "Tundratown Tunnel ¼ Mile" above it, lit by four linolites. Another camera went to the other side with the words "Rainforest District" on the green sign. The taxi that had been following the van came out the other side, but the van, apparently having stopped, was nowhere in sight. Sora and Judy refused to believe that it had vanished into thin air.

"Where did it go?" the rabbit wondered.

Nick took over control of the mouse.

"If I wanted to avoid surveillance because I was doing something illegal, which I never have, I would use the maintenance tunnel 6B."

Clicking the right mouse button revealed the white words "Maintenance Tunnel" written on a dark purple sign. The darker numbers "6B" was written in black on each side, almost camouflaging in the darkness of the tunnel.

"Which would put them out…"

He clicked the button to reveal the other side of the tunnel, with the van driving onto a circulated road lit by a single street light.

"Right there."

Judy smiled, turning to her partner of improved mannerisms. The shit-eating grin was really starting to grow on her and she praised him cheerfully with a friendly punch to the left elbow.

"Well look at you, junior detective! I think you'd actually make a pretty good cop."

The fox took this with a comforting smile and resumed with three more clicks of the right mouse button, including an overpass.

"Acacia Alley…"

A mountain road.

"Ficus Underpass…"

A further view of the winding path.

"South Canyon…"

Sora looked further into the disappearing van.

"Where does that road go to?"

Nick clicked for the final time, the screen revealing a black gothic styled gate with the curved name "Cliffside Asylum" in an old Engravers font. Behind it seemed to be a courtyard and a white building where the van went inside and stopped just directly outside the building where the loading area patients would have been.

"And I thought they didn't make asylums anymore," Nick gasped in a low voice. "Well, at least not nay controversial ones."

Sora narrowed his eyes.

"Then we'd better get there before they give Manchas and Otterton an electro-shock treatment."

And he rushed to the door, with Donald shouting behind him.

"I'm with you Sora! Wait for me!"

Goofy went in third, with Nick and Judy following as the fourth and fifth occupants to leave. Without a word spoken from either of them, the fearless five raced out of City Hall and back to the harbor.


	13. One Otter Out of the Cookoo's Nest

Like Cliffside Hospital in New Jersey, Cliffside Asylum was a grey piece of Art Deco with flat walls of stone brick. It consisted of three buildings connected to each other: the main building with two cylinder chimneys on the right side, a smaller wing with curved edges on opposite sides of the rooftop and the front wing which appeared to be about nine stories high judging by the gridded windows with its swirling fixtures that looked like mind wave patterns gone out of control, seemingly fit, or ironic, given the exact nature of the building. The three front doors of rectangular designs were lit by a pair of pale green lights with a one hundred and twenty-foot-long bridge in front of it that spanned the right side of a sixty-foot tall waterfall. On the very end was a small guard house with a red and white striped barrier the separated the facility from the main road.

When Sora, Nick, Goofy, Judy and Donald arrived via _Sea Duck_ , the sky was cloudy and morose with shades of grey and dark blue providing color against the black clouds of a foreboding rain. Then there came a gentle wind which four seconds later blew a strong puff that whistled against the shower of the waterfall, then died back again. Perhaps they would have a gale in half an hour. The weather as it seemed, was fit for a moody day like this.

Baloo brought the _Sea Duck_ to a stop below the waterfall, at an area nearby where the water lapped against the stone wall. Judy, unlatching the seat belt, gave one final request to the bear before leaving.

"Keep the engine running at least, we'll need it for a quick getaway."

Baloo saluted and he relaxed in his seat, turning on the radio to listen in on the song "Night and Day" by Ella Fitzgerald. Kit squirmed, wishing for an iPhone to keep him occupied. All he had was the scenery and he could barely (no pun intended) see the asylum above the waterfall. Listening to the music with Baloo seemed like the right thing to do and he copied his laidback position like the Mini-Me he was.

Sora activated the Keyblade Glider, taking control while Nick's arms from behind gripped his waist. Judy did the same with Nick's, keeping her mind straight to prevent her thoughts from going wild over the three of them performing a three-way intercourse. Donald and Goofy were now impatient as Sora levitated the glider upwards to where the top of his head was exactly at the edge of the cliff, his spikes sticking out of view. He turned the glider around by fifty degrees clockwise, allowing Judy to leave the glider while Nick did the same. They climbed to the edge, taking it as a vantage point while Sora went back for Donald and Goofy.

Judy sided her eyes to Nick and aimed her left thumb in the direction of the guard house. Nick, fearful of the wolves, turned his emerald eyes to her violet ones and ran on light feet to the post. The ice-blue eyed wolf's back was turned, and his fellow wolf was busy on the phone with other security members. Once the they were behind, with the wolf on the phone accompanying his partner by the gate. Nick conversed with Judy in sign language, which was virtually the only thing he seemed to learn from his short lived days at the Junior Ranger Scouts (by watching them from a distance, no doubt). He pointed his left index and middle fingers at his eyes, placed the hand on his heart, made a tip-toe gesture with his right middle and index fingers representing a pair of legs, aimed the index finger forwards, covered his cupped left hand with his flat right one and finally used both hands to create what looked like a "bat-signal" before silent clapping them together and ended with his left hand on his heart and tugging his right ear with the hand on that side. He then gave Judy the Siskel and Ebert signature of "two thumbs up" and slid to the other side of the guard house by the pale blue light while the wolf's back was turned.

At the very moment Sora came back to the ledge with Donald and Goofy, Nick reached the other side and the white Timberwolf, standing with his hands behind his back, sniffed the cool air. The guard house behind him had the plain accoutrements of a blue topped stool, a green telephone and a brown logbook for listing the names of dates and patents that came and left, some of them not having completely recovered yet from their illnesses. When the Timberwolf faced his head to the direction of the hospital, he looked suspicious and Nick tried hard to hold his breath, avoiding the sniffs that grew louder until…

" _Aw, aw, AWOOOOOOOOOO!_ "

Judy, remembering one detail of her class in the Academy, imitating animal calls for reconnaissance and distraction, was cupping her left hand to the mouth, imitating the desperate cry of a wolf. Sora, Goofy and Donald heard the cry too, looking on just in time as the Timberwolf reciprocated by turning his head in the other direction with his hands pointing down like a dog and raising his neck into the air with a howl that sounded more authentic than Judy's imitation, but still convincing. He stopped when his comrade, the black furred Timberwolf with a white mouth, rushed over, placing his hand on his mouth.

"Gary, what the hell do you think you're doing? You're gonna start a howl!"

The white wolf known as Gary placed his hands on his chest, defending himself in an accusing tone.

"I didn't start it!"

Judy's howl resounded again, reverberating into the wind. Gary looked in the direction of the road outside and howled at the top of his lungs as the wolf, whose name was Larry, repeated him in a near synchronization, seemingly hypnotized by the sound of Judy's howling blowing into his ears and brought a louder howl that Baloo and Kit could hear all the way from the bottom in the closed doors of the _Sea Duck._

"They'd had better not get them," Kit wondered to his faster father. "Cause if they do, we may be next."

"They wouldn't get us," Baloo assured him with a friendly smile. "Nobody but Judy and those other guys know we're here and besides, we'll be flying away by the time they get to us. I've got the fuel tank all pumped up."

Kit relaxed his muscles and sank into his seat, his smile turning into a wince.

On the cliff, Sora, Donald and Goofy seized the opportunity to strike at the two wolves. Goofy went first, placing his hands in a cymbal position. As the wolves reached the very top of their lungs, Goofy stopped in front of them and moved his hands inwards. The shield in his right hand crashed into the back of Larry's head while his left hand, formed into a fist, delivered a hard blow that sent Gary's head butting into Larry's. The Timberwolves bonked their own temples in a collision that made them shaky before slipping into unconsciousness. Six other wolves joined in on the howl, unaware of Gary and Larry's ambush.

Sora had no time to congratulate Goofy, he had seen Judy and Nick running under the gate and he with Donald followed them across the bridge, running as fast as they could, taking the right hand side behind a wall near a van. Even if Sora, Donald and Goofy were to fight off the wolves, they would have even greater difficulty dealing with the staff _inside_.

"You are a clever bunny," Nick smiled to Judy once they were behind the black wall of stone.

"And I think the only way to get inside without altering the staff is through there."

Sora aimed his right index finger to the decorated fountain pouring out displacement water, which appeared to be decorated with the design of a turtle's shell with a twelve-inch ledge that spilled water out of it. Donald was disgusted.

"The sewer?! YUCK! What if it has bacteria?"

"I think it pumps out the displacement water or something," Goofy displayed his uncharacteristically-refined intelligence of a sewage system with a simple hint of hidden intelligence.

"It can't be that bad," Sora muttered.

And it wasn't by the time he was inside. The water was crashing against his large shoes, pounding sprays and drops into his hair and face as he struggled to continued his way through the short pipe leading upwards. Nick had gone first, putting his fingers through the grate and twisting it counterclockwise by forty-five degrees to the left, opening the cover and letting himself in with Judy's eyes at the floor level. In her right hand was her iPhone, its LED flashlight shining through a small corner of the dark room which appeared to be a ward or a storage area with two beds, one upright, the other lopsided.

Judy sniffed the air as she and Nick in near synchronization, placed their right feet out of the pipe and finally released themselves from it, allowing Goofy to climb in, followed by Sora and Donald. Nick went in the direction of a lonely wheelchair that seemed to be in perfect condition. Judy investigated the bed with her flashlight; by the edge was an upside down bed with a grey curtain with a white bedframe in front of it on the other side. There was another larger object (perhaps a couple of other bedframes) concealed by a grey sheet and on the left side of the upright bed were a pair of mattresses lying on top of each other and a stack of four beds with the top tilted downwards. Among other objects, it truly was either a storage room, or an untidy work of lax employers. Sora, not having seen too many of these type of amenities, felt a sense of dread that pulled his heartstrings and his gut down to the pit of his internals. He asked quietly to anyone in particular.

"What is this place."

"It looks like…."

Judy shined her light on the four beds as she answered.

"This really was a hospital."

Her light came on the chrome silver iron door and her eyes went to Nick's, then Sora's for extra measure. Nick felt he was taking a dare as he sucked in four ounces of air into his lungs, providing him with the strength he needed to confront the door to untold horrors. At least that was what he thought lay beyond the door when he walked up to the handle on silent footsteps. Timidly, his right hand reached out, wobbling ever so slightly to reach the door handle and when his fingers touched the handle, it went down by an inch before his fingers and the rest of his body slided behind Judy.

"Why don't you do it, you're the brave one."

Judy just glared at Nick before her vision was blocked by Sora.

"I think I'll do the honors."

His right hand gripped the door handle in an icy hold and a deep ocean blue light shined into Judy's violets.

The that lay before them was a laboratory with a bed in the middle and a wheelchair just five feet away from it. Six monitors detailing different sections of a brain added the fluorescent blue to the room, reinforced by the dim glow of sixteen overhead lights. Ten rows of wooden drawers with metal bar doors were fixed at the bottom with their own set of white linolites. In front of the bed was a cart with three shelves; there was nothing on the bottom, but the middle shelf seemed to have three jars with two full and one half empty of contents. On the top seemed to be a chemistry set, with three round containers in decreasing size. Other objects included appeared to be a three dimensional printer, a large round light used to see into the mouths of patents, a stool and a fountain above the drawers.

Judy peeked her head in under Sora's while Nick wedged his head between her ears, pushing them aside with his hands.

"Looks clear to me," he whispered.

Judy looked up at Nick's voice with an odd face of uneasiness. She sighed when he moved his head back, exasperated and moved the flashlight to the operating table.

"Equipment looks brand new," she said into her phone.

Moving to the video app, she began recording. The video started with the stool and the table, going up by thirty-eight degrees, before Donald whispered.

"Judy…"

She shined the light on the duck, then to Nick standing behind a keypad lock, who pointed his left index finger down to the grey floor, where four long marks of white clawed the floor in all directions. The scenes of what looked like a struggle from not too long ago seemed to have etched a vision of horror in her mind.

"Huge claw marks," she whispered, taking in the atrocities nature of the marks.

Nick turned and jumped just in time to find a red eyed tiger snarling at him with a sinister grin, that in a split second turned into a frown that read the perfect expression of needing to be liberated despite his anger. The fox was knocked with fright and so were the duck and the dog, who clung to Sora, using him as a human shield, should the tiger break out of the glass and claw them to death.

The tiger in question was completely nude, somewhat reminding Judy of her play, with Tobias playing the role of the tiger when he was in fact a jaguar. Her childhood play was turning into an adult nightmare right before her eyes as she saw the tiger walking back and forth on all fours….like an regular animal extracted from the Stone Age. Shining her light to the left, Judy looked down at the corridor of sixteen different rows, eight on each side with a red light to confirm that the doors were locked, filled with the low groans of growl of similar animals who seemed to share the same fate as the tiger. Nick and Sora followed her direction in curiosity while Donald and Goofy shook in total fear, perpetuating goosebumps from the cold that went down their spines.

Goofy kept his eyes covered at the bear of black fur on his left, not wishing to see anymore frights for rest of the day.

 _It almost looks like Tug._ Sora was glancing in the direction of the large bear that reminded him of a trip to the Pacific Northwest during the Inuit times.

Judy shined her light on the bear, exposing his sharp teeth that seemed natural, but perhaps the mutation made even deadlier. A roar coming from her right flank revealed the yellow eyed Manchas, now completely golden in the iris as he tried to recognize her underneath his savage self-worth. Recognizing him, she continued on to the end of the hall, where on the cell next to Manchas' was a pair of glasses, broken and lying on the floor in reminiscence of the character only known and written as Piggy of _Lord of the Flies_. The lens on the right was cracked all around while the left lens had come out of its socket. Shining the light upwards was a curled otter wearing nothing by forest green trousers, his eyes now matching the color of an egg yolk. Too shocked to display any sign of excitement, Judy whispered the very name she had been looking for.

"Emmitt Otterton."

At last, after a day and a half of searching, the missing otter, separated from his desperate wife and loving boys, had been found….behind a glass cage and now reduced, his mind having gone back in time to an age, a world even where animals were primitive.

Finding her courage, Judy placed her hands on the glass and spoke her attempt to make Emmitt understand her.

"Mr. Otterton…? My name…is…Judy Hopps. I'm an officer, and…your wife sent me to find you. We are going to get you out of here—"

Mr. Otterton took two steps forward, at first seeming to recognize his wife with his eyes turning to a normal black…but they flashed yellow again when he came clawing at the window with high pitched screeches.

"I guess he has no intention to return home," Nick said after the five of them fell to the floor on their backs in fright.

Judy proceeded to count the cells with her left index finger, creating a three sixty degree turn as she did.

"Not counting Manchas, that makes…."

"Fourteen," Sora said for her.

"Chief Bogo handed out fourteen missing mammal cases…and they're all here."

"Now the question left to be asked is…who is the kidnapper."

Before Judy could answer Sora's question, the sound of footsteps came into her hearing, followed by mountainous silhouette blocking the yellow light of the doorway in front of them. It could have looked the mane of a lion…or something else.

But it was.

The door opened to reveal a glimpse of the creature, which forced Judy, Nick, Goofy, Sora and Donald into an empty cell, ducking onto the floor with frightened breaths. Nick had it the worst, combined with the trauma of what he had seen. The voice from the supposed proprietor of the establishment was loud a very familiar. A voice that Judy had not heard since a yell over the intercom back in City Hall.

"ENOUGH! I don't want any damn excuses, doctor! I WANT ANSWERS!"

Sure enough, it was unbelievably Mayor Leodore Lionheart. His assistant walking by his left hand side, wearing a turquoise suit and a white lab coat was Dr. Madge "Honey" Badger, a scientist/medical advisor who believed in a sheep conspiracy that would mark an apocalypse where sheep took their place as rulers of the world. Much of her theories, even logical ones were turned down due to her scientific and medical mind reaching out to the impossible and even conclusions that seemed unlikely, but some of them were indeed believed to be true. To this end, she had begun working in Cliffside Asylum, personally selected by Lionheart to do work on the savage animals. Little did either of them know that they were braced for scandal from an incriminating video that Judy was recording right now.

"Mayor Lionheart, please be patient! It may be a symptom of the night howlers."

Things were beginning to make sense to Judy once she connected the words "symptom" and "night howlers" and just when Sora's mouth formed the vowel of a "W", intending to say "What are these night howlers that everyone's so crazy about?", her extrasensory perception went into her right index finger, holding it up and gesturing him to remain silent until they were out of the building, or at least someplace where Lionheart could not hear them.

"I have a half-a-dozen animas here who have gone mentally insane and you're telling me to be patient? Night howlers, I agree, could be the most likely answer, but what if it's something else?"

"Perhaps it's time we considered their biology."

"What do you mean by that?" Mayor Lionheart now had his hands on his hips, his face demanding results.

"All of the captured mammals are predators. If it is not a symptom of the night howlers, we need to expose the truth."

Lionheart's eyes widened, seeing reason before anything else…if not his job.

"Sounds plausible, but how is the public going to react that their mayor is A FUCKING LION who is involved with a former conspiracy theorist?! I'LL BE RUINED FOR NOAH'S SAKE!"

Judy darted her eyes at Nick, making sure he was still focusing on the conversation. Sora and Goofy narrowed their eyes at him, concentrating…but Donald, who had been familiar with Lionheart through newscasts and online articles, was starting to believe the scandalous rumors they posted about him. Now the duck, who had trusted the mayor like any other citizen, was now determined to bring him down for unauthorized cruelty of wild animals.

"What will Chief Bogo say about your current absences?" Dr. Badger continued, timid to the point of using her clipboard as a shield.

"Chief Bogo doesn't know!" Lionheart shouted, pointing an accusing left index finger at her. "And _we_ plan to keep it that way."

"Not if I can help it," Donald muttered.

He gripped the mage's staff in his right hand and immediately aimed it at the lion through the small circular hole in the window above Nick's crown, shouting " _Sleepga_ " which caught Lionheart and Dr. Badger's attention. A burst of white magic resembling a sparkle of a tidal wave came through the hole and Lionheart turned just in time to see it approaching him at a bullet's pace. Too late to take evasive action, the magic hit Lionheart smack dab in the nose, plunging into his nostrils and some of the sparkles even went into his mouth. His eyes struggled to regain their strength before he fell to the floor, striking his chin from the bottom and seemed to bounce slightly, slipping finally into unconsciousness.

Dr. Badger saw the five intruders, trying not to panic as she walked her way past the fallen king of the jungle to the door, shouting.

"Security, sweep the area!"

It was there that Judy ended the recording. The red light of warning sounded the alarm and she took Nick by the right hand to the exit with Sora, Goofy and Donald following them in hot pursuit. The door was starting to close on them and when it was about three inches away from being shut completely, Sora's right fingers reached for the door and held it back with all his strength, closing his eyes and straining as he held on. Judy, Nick and Donald slid their way past him and Goofy dived his way through the door, allowing Sora to make his move. At the precise moment he left the door, the door resumed to close, locking itself along with the other cell doors when the steel door to the entrance opened, revealing a trio of wolves, Gary, Lary and Samuel, carrying tranquilizer guns with red laser lights. However, by the time they reached them, all five were out of the room, intent on heading back to the septic tank where they had made their entrance.

As she ran through the hospital bed they has investigated about two minutes ago, Judy heard her phone ringing the tune of happiness…the happiness of her parents wanting to know what she had been doing recently after a day and a half of not talking to her.

 _Not now._ She moaned trying to run as fast as her feet could carry her, not imagining the disappointed expressions on her their faces when they heard her answering machine.

Speaking of which, Judy decided to let the call go to voice mail, turning her head back over her left and right shoulders five seconds apart to make sure that no one else was following them. The room where they had entered was still dark when Nick opened the door that was surprisingly unlocked and Donald was the first to make a dash for the pipe. He clasped his hands together, jumped in and found himself sliding down the cavernous tunnel, belly first, his yells chorused by Sora, Judy, Goofy and Nick in a tintinnabulation of cries as the fearless five found themselves shooting out of the same entrance where they came from.

Judy placed her iPhone into a seal container from her left pouch as they fell and covered her nose when her feet touched the silvery grey surface of water. The seal container worked its magic and she gripped it tight upon reaching the surface. Baloo, who had been napping in the cockpit, was too far away to hear their screams, but Kit could make out the five figures falling into the water for a moment or two, then when he saw them swimming towards the _Sea Duck_ , he nudged Baloo out of his narcolepsy and the older bear's right hand opened the door to see Judy shouting loudly.

"We have to tell Bogo!"

* * *

Chief Bogo did not like to brag, but he too had caught the eye of Gazelle app. His smiling head on tiger's body was bouncing next to her and the songstress/dancer was now looking back up at her saying "Wow! You are one hot dancer…" followed by an electronic voice adding "Buffalo—Bogo" to the mix. The bull, commonly seen as one of strength and strict wisdom, found his pleasure of watching his tiger body shake his booty along with the pop star of flaxen hair—which was later short-lived by the arrival of Clawhauser. Immediately, he muted the iPad and placed it screen down on his desk.

"Officer Hopps just called. She has found ALL of the missing mammals!"

Although he was relieved from having his reputation ruined by some app, the words matched his face of surprise.

"I'm impressed."

Then he leapt from his chair and ran downstairs, shouting.

"EVERYONE TO YOUR CARS, WE HAVE FOUND THE MISSING MAMMALS! I REPEAT, WE HAVE FOUND THE MISSING MAMMALS!"

As he ran downstairs to issue a detailed list of commands to his fellow officers, the curious Clawhauser, who could not resist the temptation of looking into the belongings of others (as he sometimes took police investigation work up to his head), tittered over to the iPad and turned it over to reveal the animated dancing head of his superior attached to a tiger's body clad in a silver sequined pair of shorts.

"You have the Gazelle app too?"

Not daring to wait for Bogo to answer his self-question, he ran out of the office to join the others, putting the iPad back just the way he found it before leaving.

* * *

It took the police one hour and thirty minutes to arrive and detain all Cliffside staff and personnel inside, including Mayor Lionheart, who woke up from Donald's spell in time to see Bogo checking his wrists, feet and limbs to see if he was injured. Aside from a small mark to his chin from striking it on the floor, he was unharmed from any internal or external effects of the spell and when he had fully recovered, Bogo was placing him in handcuffs. He didn't dare to ask the chief why, since he had already known that the perpetrator revealed to be Judy Hopps had already exposed his cover. Outside, he found a cordon of ten police cars and vans with two helicopters shining their searchlights on each end of the building, looking for anyone else who escaped arrest. Judy also interned Dr. Badger who explained in summary about the night howlers. The bunny told her about the time her uncle and mother's older brother Terry, ate one whole during a family event involving Terry's second cousin's wedding. He had tried to make himself look like a champ during an eating contest with Stu, only to suffer a blow of emotions that made him just about as savage as the captured mammals. Once Lionheart made his entrance, flanked by Bogo, Francine Trunkaby and Higgins, she read his Miranda rights.

"Mayor Lionheart, you have the right to remain silent. Anything you say—"

"You do not understand!" Lionheart interrupted. "I was trying to protect the city from those savages!"

But the hot-headed Sora had other ideas when he walked up to the lion on his left.

"I think you were just trying to protect your job, asswipe."

Sora quietly apologized, but before he could do so out loud, Lionheart spoke again.

"Even if this all being caused by the night howlers we still don't have a cure for the symptoms. That's why I hired Dr. Badger! I thought she knew-"

"Then I guess you were wrong!" Judy shouted dramatically. "But you still have the right to remain silent!"

And he was…all the way to the very end of the trip that took him the state pen.

The next morning, after a celebratory dinner of vegetables and a restless sleep, Judy, Nick, Sora, Donald and Goofy came to see a media circus jamming the entrance to police headquarters. With only the news of Lionheart's arrest and the discovery of the missing mammals reported, the rest had to come from Judy herself. At six-sixteen a.m., when Miss Bellwether heard the news, the city council immediately promoted her to "acting mayor", considering it as a temporary title until Mayor Lionheart's case could be settled one week later in a courtroom. Should he be incarcerated for a long period of time, the city officials would grant Bellwether the official title of mayor and Lionheart's successor.

The announcement of Bellwether taking over as acting mayor came an hour after her new positon had been filled, as nearly all of the city's reporters were busy looking for a story from Judy. Judy had already retired to her apartment and Dharma did whatever she could to keep the reporters back until they resignedly left the building empty-handed…much to the annoyance of the two Oryx-Antlerson brothers who tried to drown their ears in their own shouts of profane excuses, unknowingly helping Dharma drive the media away from the Grand Pangolin Arms. On that morning at police headquarters, Chief Bogo addressed the crowd of photographers, reporters, cameramammals and technicians on a podium festooned with a microphone for each channel. Behind him was the plasma television screen presenting the headshots of the missing mammals before shifting to a panoramic view of Cliffside Asylum.

"Fourteen mammals went missing and all fourteen have been found by our newest officer and volunteers who will speak with you in thirty seconds."

Nick relaxed his elbows on the wall beside the greenery of African plants, just thirty-five feet away from the podium. The three travelers stood by Judy, who did not expect the time left before she went on the stage. She had stood in front of crowds before, but an audience was no different compared to a media circus of reporters from FOX, Universal and ABC.

"Thirty seconds?! I don't think I have enough time to prepare."

Nick turned his shit-eating grin into one of a kinder, supporting smile.

"If you want to look smart," he told her. "Answer their question with your own question and then answer _that_ question."

"Like what?" asked Sora, placing his hands on his hips. "I'm not sure if I'm following you."

"Watch me."

Nick's hands gestured to that of a microphone placed to his mouth. In reality, it was likely that feedback would have gotten him in ears, causing him to grimace with shut eyes of pain. Instead, he put on his best impression of a reporter from the highest ranking member of the newspaper office.

"'Excuse me, Officer Hopps, is there anything you can tell us about the case?'"

Then he lowered his legs and looking up by a degree, reflecting Judy's height. Judy herself was impressed at how hard he tried not to make fun of her feminine vocals.

"'Well, was this a big case or a little case? Yes it was.' See what I mean?"

Judy looked at him, then Sora and his own friends with warm eyes that brought a sparkle to her violets.

"I think you and Sora should be up there with me. We did this as a team, so you, Goofy, Donald and Sora deserve the credit."

"Don't forget Baloo and Kit," Sora corrected. "They carried us around for the second half of the journey. But it's best that you go alone, Judy. We're not cops, just volunteers, and Nick was only a valuable asset to the case."

Nick didn't seem to take this as an offense, he was lulled by Judy's words that took over Sora almost immediately after he spoke.

"It would be nice to have you as a partner. As soon as this is over, I can get you a form and can fill it in whenever you like."

Nick was stunned. Exchanging his life as a con fox for an officer of the law would be as tantamount as redeeming himself of his sins, including those to Mr. Big and the skunk fur incident, simply believing that his mother would be warm between those buns. He reflected on other areas of his life as well, remembering the shame he suffered at various times (including his skewed initiation at the Junior Ranger Scouts headquarters) from verbal and physical abuse from anyone who looked down upon him.

"I guess you'll be wanting this."

From her left pouch, the hand on that side produced the carrot pen and Nick took it with his right.

 _All this fuss over a pen. I was nearly starting to forget about it._

At the very moment he smiled at Judy, her thirty seconds of preparation were up. Mayor Bellwether, who chose to wear a blue-almost-black shirt with ketchup red with a dark mauve skirt, gestured her hands with a whisper.

"Officer Hopps, you're on."

Without so much as looking back, Judy walked over to the stage, confident that she could take on a new type of audience

"And now…I will turn things over to the officer who solved the case…Officer Judy Hopps."

Taking in a short breath of relief with her hands locked at the level of her stomach, Judy approached the podium. Already was there a cacophony of "Officer Hopps! Officer Hopps!" even before she came to a complete stop. Approximately thirty-one in all participating in the story of the lifetime were eager to expand and translate to every corner of their world. With the mental help of the old "eeny, meeny, miny, moe" count of choice, Judy's right index finger selected the beaver in the sky blue shirt, who judging by his microphone, worked for 5 Action News.

"You!"

"Officer Hopps, what can you tell about the animals that went savage?"

Instead of taking Nick's advice, Judy followed her heart.

"Well…the animals—in question, may have been affected by the toxin that stems from the _Midnicampum holicithias_ , or night howlers for those who are not too familiar with plants."

As Judy continued, Sora in his own detective-like skills of observing a suspect, panned the crowd with his eyes in search of someone who anyone else would least suspect. His instincts told him that must look and listen at all times, perhaps in the process of learning who was rightfully responsible for the night howlers, and it could not be the ex-mayor Leodore Lionheart with his claims of trying to help the infected animals proven true.

His eyes lay on Bellwether, whose face seemed to have an icy scowl at Judy when she mentioned the night howlers and her hands were curled into fists with her feet firm to the floor. Sora could see right through those briefly squinted eyes that the darkness in her heart was giving herself away, but she managed to compose herself in the event of wondering that someone would ask to themselves what is making her so upset. If Mayor Lionheart was lying, who's to say _she_ wasn't involved as well?

"What is the connection?"

Judy sighed again to answer the question of an Onyx reporter from Fox News.

"All we know, is that they are all members of the predator family."

"So predators are the only ones going savage from these effects?" asked a sheep in brown, holding up a white microphone with purple spots.

"Yes," Judy breathed again. "It happened to my Uncle Terry once when we were at wedding reception, but that's another story for another time."

A pig reporter in a plum shirt working for ZNN, who seemed to remind Judy of the florist shop owner with his frantic behavior, asked impatiently.

"Who?! Who could be doing this?!"

Sora observed Bellwether again. The sheep was trying not be angry, or even jealous with her. But when Judy replied "We don't know", her face went back into a smile, a smile of pleasure…and total sadism that _no one had suspected her._

 _She wouldn't harm a fly._ Sora had to find more about Lionheart's involvement even more so than Judy's, even though it was still believed that one should not meddle in the affairs of other worlds. But there was no time to settle in violating a principle that King Mickey had apparently abolished long ago after the defeat of Xehanort.

"…so we must be vigilant, and we at the ZPD are doing whatever it takes to find the real culprit and provide our scientists with sufficient funds to develop a cure for the disease."

Judy finished with a brave heart and a strong voice that only got her even more questions from the reporters and a flashlight show of photographers clicking away. Mayor Bellwether glanced at the scowling Chief Bogo, thinking he would crush her because of her "miniscule" size, and she had to do _something_ to keep Sora from staring at her all the time like he was a pervert with an eye for making love with prey, which was a disgusting concept to think about.

 _Interspecies marriage indeed!_ She snapped into action and rushed to the stage, taking Judy's left.

"Okay, thank you Officer Hopps. That's all the time we have, and you'll excuse me, I've got a very important meeting to attend with the board of directors about finding a cure."

And she rushed out of the building to Lionheart's limo sitting by the 5 Action News van. Nick and the three travelers walked up to Judy with worried looks.

"Did I do good?" the bunny asked.

"You did fine," Nick nodded with disappointment in his tone of voice. "But you didn't have a chance to mention me or about how we cracked this case together."

"The case is not cracked yet, Nick," Sora corrected. "We still have to find who is responsible for infecting Manchas and the other animals. And if Mayor Lionheart was involved, I can bet the soles of my boots that Miss Bellwether was involved as well. Which I think we should go to City Hall and ask her to confirm more about Lionheart's activities in the asylum."

"Shouldn't you be letting me handle this?" Judy asked, pointing her right thumb at her badge. "Or any other person on the force?"

"The police have their hands full on trying to find the culprit, finding a cure and a shitload of other things," Sora reasoned. "Why don't you let me deal with Bellwether while you, Nick, Donald and Goofy try to come up with a suspect."

Judy darted her eyes left to the back of her head. Her thoughts went to the bag of "onions" that she found on the day she caught Duke Weaselton in Little Rodentia, replying Chief Bogo's words as well as her own, going into the details of the scientific name before the chief interrupted her. Then her thoughts went to Manchas' cry of "THE NIGHT HOWLERS!" and things started to click for her, but since she wasn't certain enough to put all fingers to the weasel, she gave Sora a compromising smile and said.

"Why not…you go see Bellwether at City Hall…and _I'll_ see about that weasel."

Donald and Goofy, realizing that a lack of their names being mentioned only spelled trouble…a different kind of trouble in which Sora would be helpless without their assistance. If Lionheart and Bellwether were as dangerous as he believed them to be, he was going to need them and Judy and Nick combined, should there an army of guards just waiting to pounce on them.

"What about us?" they asked in unison.

"They're gonna need more help than you," Sora apologized. "This is something I have to do alone and should anything happen to me, you guys have to carry out the mission. But don't fuss, I'll get in touch with you through a walkie-talkie, if Judy has one that she can spare, and you two can come to rescue me if get into trouble with her."

The duck and dog nodded sadly. Sora's spiel to them sounded more like a storybook tragedy than that of inspiration…or just a generic speech requesting one's assistance. And without any other choice of words, Sora turned on his heels clockwise and turned away. Judy held up her right hand when he was about ten feet, her "Um?" forcing him to stop and turn his head to look over his left shoulder.

"Before you go…Would you like to be a full time officer too, Sora?"

Sora shook his head no.

"No thank you, I'm happy being a Keyblader. I also have a wife back on the island to support."

And he continued on his trek to city, but jostling his way through the media circus. He was outside by the time his head turned to the right, watching the limo pull slowly away from the parking lot before it picked up speed, away from the unneeded newscasters and their underlings. Throwing his Keyblade in the air by five feet, the Glider was activated and he hopped onto it once it was hovering above the pavement, then he followed the limo to City Hall at a distant to prevent a certain sheep from suspecting that _she was the one responsible for the crimes._

* * *

The news reached the Audubon Bay Bridge by television, where Darkwing Duck was watching Judy's announcement about the night howlers in short, but elaborate detail. Its name seemed to have rung a bell into his scientific mind and memory of criminology and he too was deducting a possible suspect—very likely, his own enemies. He moved the mouse to a section of videos listed under "Criminal Activity", the most recent one being a Quackerjack toys commercial that looked very well done given the criminal's budget from all the money he had stolen with henchmen and women as his cast and crew, himself the star and director. The video presented the harlequin dancing around with a shopping cart to the tune of "Put On a Happy Face" against the background of a toy store.

" _New and improved Quackerjack toys! With a new secret ingredient…that only you can find out for yourself!_ "

Darkwing squinted, mentally demanding for an answer.

" _Now let us go over to the testing room._ "

Heading into a pair of porthole double doors under a sign reading "Testing Room" in a black Helvetica font, the camera cutting away to a white topped beaver boy of about seven years old gnawing furiously at a wooden toy shaped to match the appearance of a steam locomotive.

" _Every time you buy a Quackerjack toy, the kids go CRAZY FOR IT!_ "

His eyes rolled at the word "crazy" with his head going against the camera's personal space. As far as Darkwing could see, there was nothing innocent about Quackerjack other than his mammal-child-like attitude. Another child, a badger appeared on his left, scratching away at a ball until it was a mess of colored fabric.

" _Those sharp teeth, those fatal claws and a behavior so natural, only your anthropologist knows for sure._ "

He giggled at the sound of that, but as Darkwing had believed, his jokes were never funny and neither were his toys.

" _So if you want a Quackerjack toy just call 555-1991 and we'll order your toy today._ "

The poor excuse of a commercial ended there, leaving Darkwing to use his left foot to push the swivel chair clockwise to face Gosalyn and Launchpad, who had seen the video from behind and were also beginning to conclude that Quackerjack was the felon. The two seemed to be keeping themselves from answering, as they just stood there letting Darkwing take command in the role of teacher and student.

"The first thing we need to do is to figure out how Quackerjack is able to lace his toys with the night howler poison. I, on the other hand, have heard many stories about lead poisoning found in some toys and it may be possible that Quackerjack is taking this as source of inspiration."

Gosalyn began with her thesis, gesturing her hands as she did.

"Well, to extract the poison they'd have to do it like the way bees harvest pollen and turn it into honey."

"You know your facts, well," Darkwing congratulated. "But I think it's nectar that bees convert into honey, not pollen…or I could be right on both accounts."

As he thought about it, which lasted for six seconds, Launchpad had his own hypothesis.

"If they made a way to, you know, like—liquidize it? That could be possible way, but some of us would already be infected by now."

"I think it only works on predators," said Darkwing. "Once it mixes into the bloodstream through the spores of the fur, it drills its way past the roots, creeps into the cerebrum and spreads all around the nerve system, destroying every bit of sanity by breaking the victim down into a violent predator. In the case of prey, it only degrades their manners and strips them of their speech, or so I think that's how it works."

He stood up from his chair, smoothing the buttons on his top.

"And to confirm my suspicions, I need to know if he was working with someone. I'll try the holding cells in Zootopia Police Headquarters. Quackerjack must have an out-of-city accomplice who can keep any fingers from being pointed at him. That or he's a very sneaky guy who just likes to hire anybody foolish enough to do his bidding."

And he hopped onto the Ratcatcher, unknowingly preparing himself to meet with another hero…a female who had just cracked her first case.


	14. The True Nature of Dawn Bellwether

After following a set of directions from the shrew of a mousey receptionist, Sora rushed into Mayor Lionheart's office with the best of intentions. He was astounded by the décor of bright brown walls with a streamlined white stripe and the wide window behind the oak desk fit for a CinemaScope screen. The name "Mayor Bellwether" was engraved in gold, officially signifying the sheep's new position as mayor (and ruler) of Zootopia and possibly her sister cities. The room also included two black swivel chairs for visitors, three potted plants of the African sort and above the small leafy tree on the right wall was a diploma from Zootopia University with Lionheart's name in a blood Edwardian font, an award for charitable services, the key to the city in a glass case, the orange, green, yellow, pale blue and red flag on the left side…

…and there in a mauve shirt, mauveine glasses and a dark shirt with a "Z" badge on her left lapel was Mayor Dawn Bellwether, greeting Sora with a friendly smile before she answered.

"Sora, what a pleasant surprise. Can I help you in any way?"

"Yes, with all due respect Miss—"

He spluttered at his nearly misused choice of words and his eyes followed the sheep's eyes to the name in gold.

"—Mayor Bellwether, I want to know more about Lionheart's involvement with missing mammals, and I think you may have been involved as well."

Mayor Bellwether placed her fingers together, still smiling as she tapped them together.

"Why don't you go to visit Lionheart at the pen and ask him yourself? I don't think you have anything on me."

Sora narrowed his eyes at the sheep. He could see the monster inside of her the same way Riku could sense a heartless about a mile away. Nothing compared to a creature of innocence that Kairi could sense with her heart of pure light. Perhaps she was lying, perhaps she was not. The dusk that glowed behind them went from yellow to pink to red to purple; a stunning sight of color turning into a prismatic smear against multi-layered clouds.

"I may not have evidence," Sora smiled fondly to keep her from getting too suspicious yet. "But I can sense your feelings. It is a trait that most Keyblade wielders have when dealing with a person. I believe it is called extrasensory perception."

"Well, us sheep have different opinions and an excellent sense of smell."

Her tone went dark with the following sentence.

"I am very sensitive to what predators smell like."

Then her lips formed into a frown of dismay and hate, before it went back to happy after a second of silence.

"I could see you glaring at Judy when she mentioned the night howlers at the conference. It seemed like your mind was saying 'I can't believe she ruined my plan'."

Bellwether's smile went from friendly to sadistic.

"I suppose you will be wanting a piece of what I have to say."

She turned the chair fifteen degrees to the right, jumped down from it and walked around the desk.

"'Mayor Bellwether, what can you tell me about night howlers?'"

Sora cupped his hands on his hips, watching Bellwether leave the office. His eyes followed her before his legs did.

"I know they're supposed to make predators go wild," he said, playing her own game.

"Basically, that's the idea but so is cancer in terms of being as of yet incurable. Testing it's power was how I was able to catch a foxy pirate like Don Karnage and use him as my own Guinea pig."

In their world, "Guinea pig" was a politically incorrect term for test subjects for obvious reasons along with "lab rat" among other names. For a suspicious person like Bellwether, she did not seem to care and neither did Sora, who was used to the term since he was human but was well respectful of all living things that were kind and gratuitous. He was following Bellwether towards the elevator where he came from on his way up, the sheep going in first while the former came in second. Her right hand pressed the "B" button for the basement, which Sora remembered as the location of her former office.

After a ride that Sora commented on a later date that he didn't feel anything (not even a light bump at the end), his face fell on confusion seeing the door to the water closet that Bellwether previously despised.

"Why are you bringing me here?"

"Between you and me, this is the last place that anyone would ever look for my…hidden operations."

Bellwether's smile seemed sincere, but almost deadly like she was leading him into a trap. But he followed her in to the office anyway and aside from having some of her personal effects moved to Lionheart's former desk, the computer, the cart and a yellow sticky tape with a number was still there, as far as Sora could analyze with his own eyes. The sheep sat in front of her old computer with quick tapping fingers, presenting the window of a fox in a royal blue suit with some red lapels and had four buttons in gold on each side of the shirt. The foxy fellow, apparently the Don Karnage mentioned by Bellwether also had turquoise trousers and while he seemed like a sky pirate at best, his arms were strapped to a steel blue table while his mouth grimaced in pain.

On his neck appeared to be something more interesting than the rest of his description: a futuristic collar that appeared to have been made from the seat belt of a car while the main focal object was grey with ten slits of an amplifier resembling a spine-chilling smile with a single eye that was red—as blood. When on, as a separate window to the right of Karnage presented, it was green—as nature itself. Sora could hardly believe the cruelty this guy had gone through, even though his reputation as a sky pirate told the Keyblader that the bastard deserved it.

"Are you building…a mind control device."

"Actually," Bellwether dripped her voice in blood. "It's an invention that Lionheart considered would be useful if there was an uprising of predators attacking the prey. For lack of a better name I call it…the Tame Collar."

"How does it work?" Sora asked, narrowing his eyes once more as he leaned in from her right flank.

"Once you put it on, the light detect the predator's emotions and keeps them in check. If they become too aggressive, it gives the wearer a shocking surprise…literally."

The image of the strapped Don Karnage became a video of him continuing to struggle vainly from his clamps, his aggression rose to the raging point and finally, a scourge of electricity in the form of a white lightning that took a flexible shape covered his head and faded into yellow sparks that disappeared into the darkness.

"What is the purpose of this?!" Sora's hate began to increase and so did Bellwether's smile of a twisted soul.

"I didn't think anyone would have a widespread knowledge of night howlers until you and Judy figured it out, but here's what I have been wanting to do. I have gotten sick and tired of living under Lionheart's shadow for the past twelve years, he along with everyone else in my school and _some_ sections of my family underestimated my intelligence, they thought it would be impossible, a science-fiction _fantasy_ to see a Zootopia where prey and predators are segregated. I've seen how your sort work, they make fun of meek little guys like me and take all the credit! So I thought it would be best if the world was better off with the prey as the dominating species; predators are just so… _fucking overrated_!"

Sora wanted to comprehend with the poor sheep's confusion of frustration at living a life of shame and suffering because she was just a sheep. However, he stayed silent, letting Mayor Bellwether fill in the remainder of her story.

"If I didn't think that no one had any widespread knowledge about the night howlers, specifically a certain bunny from a carrot farm, I wouldn't have to go through so much trouble to create the illusion that predators were reverting back to their savage ways. Once things had reached to a fever point, I would put Operation: Lion Tamer into action which would require all predators above the age of five to wear those collars and be reminded of its purpose: to keep the prey safe from harm."

She spoke the last seven words with the force of a true politician, but Sora was not pleased with this concept.

"I understand how you feel, Mayor Bellwether, but do you really think the rest of the world will submit to this?"

Bellwether stood up from her chair, taking on a tone of wickedness underneath her sweet, soft exterior. She tapped her fingers from both hands as she spoke.

"Of course they will; since there is no known cure for the night howler's effects, I believe that the mandatory use of collars will get them back to their civilized ways."

Sora tried to back her out of her evil ways with reasoning.

"But what if it _kills_ them?"

Bellwether glared.

"Then it is _their_ fault they received an automatic execution by the electricity of the collar for violently attacking a poor innocent little bunny for no good reason. This anti-predator sentiment will become my greatest triumph of truly making Zootopia a better place."

"By taking away their freedom? By turning this city into an Orwellian dystopia? By doing all of this because you were…humiliated?!"

Sora's tone went frantic before he went low.

"Miss Bellwether, you are a bitch in sheep's clothing."

The wicked assistant mayor of the west side took out a sharp silver razor with her right hand from the vest pocket on that side, swinging the tip to Sora's Adam's apple.

"Don't you give me that cannibalistic comment!"

Her tone softened, then lowered to a volume that did not go far beyond the back of Sora's ears.

"I know you and many other predators like to wear a sheep's hair and fur most of the time, and it makes me sick to my heart. Seeing a sheep's carcass on a rich dish in a five-star restaurant for predators is like another sheep wearing a sheep's wool."

Sora tried to keep his laryngeal bump away from the tip of the razor by pushing it further away, sucking in every ounce of air that he had. Bellwether didn't move the razor blade by a single inch, she kept it there for four seconds before she lowered it, allowing Sora to breath. At first the panther was relieved, yet the sheep was reaching into the top drawer on the right, her hand scouring through the files, obtaining an object heavier than paper.

"What do you think you are doing?" he asked suspiciously, ready to move from his current spot.

The hand moved out of the drawer, producing a collar that resembled the one on the computer screen. Sora had thought of jumping over her, escaping to warn Judy and Nick about the true nature of Mayor Bellwether, but as the old saying goes, curiosity killed the cat…in his case, the panther.

"Mind over muscle, Sora…"

He leaned down, hypnotized by the red glow of the tempting collar. Trying not to be gullible, his mind resisted, but with a fast wave that his eyes could not see, Bellwether had snapped the collar on. A second later, his neck felt it and it seemed to itch from the fabric made entirely from a seat belt strap.

"I'd advise you not to take it off if you want to see your friends again."

"You're bluffing," Sora scoffed, his right paw trying not to go against her words.

"Anyone who tries to remove the collar by force is likely to face electrocution, but most mammals expect the predator to unleash his or her inner fury onto the first victim they see. But instead, they get a sorry sight of the predator smoothing his neck, bathing in the liberation from government control and seeking the freedom they desire before the collar is, unfortunately, strapped on again. Now before I go into further detail…let's see what Judy and your freaky friends have been up to."

Sora quietly moaned for his freedom. For the first time since his near-brush into becoming Master Xehanort's thirteenth vessel, he was working for the very person he was starting to dislike the most.


	15. Predator vs Prey: The Big Finish

The holding cells located further to the rear of police headquarters were filled to the brim with all the criminals that came and left. It was fitted with over twenty cells each on the left and right against a murky chartreuse wall with pine green and white stripes going across the middle. Judy could see at the very end was the familiar sight of Duke Weaselton, wearing the same clothes as before and holding a nervous discussion with an indirectly-sized-by-comparison rhinoceros named Connor Deacon who appeared to be disgruntled with his chatty-catty ways of explaining his _motus-operandi_.

"Did you know I used to sell pirated Blu-Rays? I even got movies that hadn't been released yet."

Of course, the ones that had not been released yet were different films, which seemed to lose the trust of his customers. Some who already knew they were fake ignored his vendor cries of declaring their (in)authenticity. Several others like a certain Nick Wilde called him the "Duke of Bootleg", but right now he was not a king of anything aside from the pale pink toothpick that he held in his left incisor. Indeed, the fox himself, aided by the bunny, duck and dog were approaching him in a gentlemanly fashion. Connor turned his attention to the window, already knowing that they were aiming for duke when he heard Nick say.

"Well, well, if it isn't the Duke of Bootleg."

Duke, disdained by the sight of this gentlemanly version of the con-fox he had often seen frequently around the block, used his right hand to remove the toothpick, angrily belittling him.

"Wha's it to you, motherfucker? Shouldn't you be melting down a pawpsicle or somethin'?"

Then his crimson eyes went to Judy, Goofy and Donald, smiling spitefully.

"Well, if it isn't Flopsy the Copsy and some other guests who seem to know me."

Judy crossed her arms in a reversal of Nick's shit eating grin, carrying a blasé tone of demand. Being a female, she would go easy on him before the masculine side of her went into full action of beating him up.

"We both know those were not onions I caught you stealing the other day, they were night howlers."

She leaned in by fifteen to twenty degrees, squinting her eyes by four inches. When Duke seemed to lower his smile, he was unable to reply when Judy asked again.

"What were you going to do with them?"

Duke wagged the toothpick in his right index and middle fingers, playfully.

"I ain't talking."

Fortunately on their part, Connor had widened his eyes at the sight of a duck in a cape and fedora through the three bar window, the cape blocking out the natural light of the cell into darkness. Nick, Judy, Donald and Goofy faltered at the sight, stepping back by a foot. Donald, surprised at seeing another member of his species since when they had first arrived, took two steps closer to the figure and before anyone could even think about doing anything else to Duke, the figure released his hands from the bars and jumped down between Connor and the weasel.

"I'm looking for one Quackerjack," the masked avenger narrowed his eyes.

Duke seemed to be familiar with the name, but with his eyes darting left all the way to the edge, he chose to lie.

"If you're looking for a crackerjack, buddy, go to an amusement park. I think you'd make a good character in that get up."

The masked duck's hands went from open to closed and his webbed feet stood on the toes. They left the ground along with the rest of his body in a magnificent leap to the weasel and with the strength of his hands, he grabbed the straps of Duke's tank top, pinning him to the bars.

"Don't get smart with me, Duke Weaselton, I know you were with the jester when he was harvesting night howlers."

His head leaned in by five inches, their eyes making direct contact with one another.

"Or so my files say."

Duke gulped and his Adam's apple bobbed at the duck's eyes inching to him on a menacing rate of an impending doom. He did not dare to suffer any consequence of what unspeakable tortures the figure known as Darkwing Duck would inflict upon him; whipping, quartering, tarring, feathering, you name it. So this time he spoke the truth in a quivering, almost "lippy" voice.

"Quackerjack needed me to get the flowers for his toys so that he could use those kids or whoever bought those as his own personal army or something to get rid of you."

But Darkwing was not impressed, his grip was tighter than before.

"I could figure that out by myself. Anything else?"

Duke tried to find his breath and the impatient Darkwing shook him up and down four times with a louder voice to go with it.

"When was the last time you spoke to him?"

"About two days ago, when he called me to get another batch of flowers, and I did before that bunny had to go and fuck it up."

Judy turned her focus away from Duke by turning her head eight degrees to the right and hoped that she did not hear his profane words.

"A ram who'd heard about the deal offered me money. His name is Doug Rameses. We got a drop spot underground. Just watch it. Doug is the opposite of friendly: he's unfriendly."

The weasel's words seemed to have convinced Darkwing, who with a satisfied smile, released his grip on Duke and the prisoner fell on his behind to the floor. Judy resumed to interrogate him again from behind her side of the bars.

"Where is this drop spot and is there an entrance?"

Duke turned to face her.

"Pick a subway entrance, any subway entrance. But I'll reckon you three that the closest to their laboratory's gonna be at the Banyan Street Station. Place went out of business ten years ago when built a new tunnel for the A, B and C trains."

"Thanks for the info," Darkwing smiled slyly in a way that could supersede Nick's. "I'll be happy to escort you there."

"Sure," Duke nodded. "But I don't think I'd want to confront him after failing to get his high howlers on time."

Darkwing's right foot slammed on Duke's chest and a surging mixture of oxygen and pain went through windpipe, forcing him to gasp for air. His vision, falling down to look up at the ceiling, was met by discontented face of Darkwing, looking down at him.

"Not you, cunt…them."

He extended his right hand towards Nick, Judy, Donald and Goofy, who smiled in return. Judy spoke first.

"Of course, we would be happy if you could take us to the Banyan Station."

"Or we could use the map app on your phone," Nick added.

Darkwing turned his head over his left shoulder to the window of light where he had come from, turning back to the quartet as he said.

"I'll meet you outside."

And he did, by crouching his legs as far as he could and leaping with open hands to grasp the wall, extending his arms over the edge which dragged his upper body to the other side and landed in a bush that broke his fall. Then he rushed over the Ratcatcher with the intention of driving the party of four all the way to the station…but he could have sworn to have seen a pair of silver bells hiding in the bushes.

After staring at the ceiling for three minutes, traumatized by the visit, Duke heard another voice. His thought told him that he was going insane, but the voice sounded very real and very familiar.

"And to think I trusted you with deliveries."

From the same window where Darkwing Duck had leapt from, came the somersaulting figure of Quackerjack, who landed on his feet, arms crossed and with a smile that spelled death for his victims. Duke could only gulp as he asked timidly.

"You heard?"

"I heard everything through my listening device. Doesn't come in custom colors, so I painted mine red and purple…out of my own personal tastes."

And just like Darkwing before him, he gripped Duke's straps, this time holding him with his legs still on the floor like a ragdoll.

"Now tell me, is there anything else about Doug Ramses that I should also know about?"

"Well, he's got a lot of contacts, a couple of friends, very little relatives and he copied your night howler gun."

But instead of an angry glare that some rouge criminal had plagiarized his technology, Quackerjack curled the muscles of his lips into a tight grin of evil.

"Well, isn't that coincidence? Here we are talking about some ram who copied my invention and I didn't even have to shut Manchas up with Mr. Big's permission….he, ha, ha, ha…Makes you want to laugh, _doesn't it?_ "

He released Duke from his grip, turned clockwise to the window and leapt out in a more professional display compared to Darkwing's as he laughed and laughed his heart out, leaving the poor weasel traumatized for unwittingly helping an insanely homicidal jester in turning the children of his city into little monsters of sin.

The lonely entrance to the Banyan Street Station stood on the sidewalk next to an abandoned warehouse of bricks and dusty windows. The floral designed exterior was originally a darker shade of lush green, but the decade of abandonment turned the color into a faded turquoise. Above the bostwick gate of a doorway was a black screen with "Banyan Street Station" in white and below it was the letter "A" in indigo, "B" in maroon and "C" in orange. A particular shade of orange that accurately matched one gone rotten with the smear of black dust encircling it. On the gate was a sign of white and red, tilted at about ten degrees to the right that said "STATION CLOSED" in black bold letters.

Nick, Judy, Goofy and Donald passed a rhino on the phone and quietly approached the scissors gate that was rusted from age around the screws that flexed the bars. Darkwing sighed as he announced to his new companions who had been riding in the sidecar.

"Well here we are, and I didn't even have to use my GPS."

Donald shot a bolt of lightning from his mage's staff to the lock on the gates, which burst into a two second light of white. Released from the gates, the lock dangled for a second and the pendulum swing of the very object that held the gated door closed fell to the floor. Darkwing pushed the gates asides with both hands, allowing Goofy to go in first, Donald second, Nick third and Judy in fourth while he himself was the last to go and left quickly before there were any other chances of his cape getting caught on the scissors.

In what used to be a bustling metro station with seven lights forming a crescent on an alcove, the party of five travelled down thirty-nine steps to an antechamber of ruin with two lights glowing orange on the left and one on the bottom right. From a turnstile long since underused, the lights of an express train passed a rusty orange carriage decorated with illegible graffiti and markings from stolen school supplies. The passengers on that train were unaware of the source of the night howler plague coming from that car, but not the five whose's objective

"That must be it," Goofy whispered.

With the sounds of the wheels rolling away from her ears, Judy took the lead towards the car, peering her eyes through a window to a light of purple and pink mixed with red. She looked down at a lonely blue wire hanging off the other side with a group of four other wires in red and black leading down to two rows of a night howler garden under a pink florescent light. One hundred flowers on the left and another hundred on the right added up to two hundred night howlers in a brown earth of fertilizer. Judy jumped down, remaining on tip toe as Nick and the others followed her and her quiet compliments.

"The weasel wasn't lying."

Nick nodded his head.

"Yeah, it looks like old Doug's cornered the market on Night Howlers."

Before Darkwing, Goofy or Donald could state their opinions, they stopped at the sound of a door opening at a loud crash into the wall and without further questioning, Judy and Nick ducked under the left row while the three misfits took the right. From her vantage point, she could see the rear of a ram wearing a mustard yellow suit that looked too seventies for a laboratory use. The ram, believed in her mind to be Doug, strapped on a gas mask and breathed slowly as he lifted a garbage can of buds. Judy crawled over by five steps to see him dumping the content into a vat of liquid (she could tell by the way they splashed into the pot), following by a flushing sound before he shut the lid turned the dial with his right hand.

Sniffing the air, Judy watched a liquid of a night blue color travelling through a system of flexibly invisible pipes that were held from loop fasteners. The liquid circulated through the pipes at a rapid rate with about six or seven drops at first before rest of the liquid came as a whole. It came down into a small chemistry set of a miniature tank, up and down a thin pipe into a round tube, through another small pipe into a glass kettle on a tiny stove and up through a straw like dipper where it turned indigo and drop by drop, landed into a miniaturized jar that was half empty on top of a pine green device.

Doug placed a one-inch orb of glass into a steel holder with his left hand, while his right pulled back a black rubber lever and released it along with the indigo liquid into what was known to scientists as a pellet. Holding it in-between his right index finger and thumb, Doug's eyes peered at the marvel of his creation: the thought that such a tiny object could cause a predator to go primitive and violent beyond any control of his own awareness.

Then the door opened again…to reveal the surprising figure of Quackerjack with his hands curled into a fist and filled with rage in his heart, mind and soul, yet more civilized compared to the victims gone savage. Doug slowly removed his mask in caste the jester would try anything funny, like killing him for example.

"Ain't it always the way? You trust a certain weasel and then he decides to stab you in the back for the oldest of all reasons…greed."

Doug's face remained unconcerned. He was familiar with Quackerjack through news reports, but he didn't know too much about the criminal as evidenced by what he said next.

"I thought you found tricks amusing, Quackerjack."

"Me?" Quackerjack asked by putting his right hand on his heart in a feminine way. "Tricks can be good sometimes, but not when somebody plagiarizes your work."

"I know; Duke gave me the blueprints to your pellet gun."

"In which Duke himself told me about your 'grand scheme," he said this with air quotes. "I had a feeling you were the cause of all this, especially that otter I heard about in the papers."

"Yes," Doug added with a casual tone. "I hit him through the open door of a car."

In her mind, Judy could see Emmitt opening the door for some fresh that would lead to a mistake of his life, one that would put him in the mindset of his forefathers. Quackerjack then proceeded to reveal his own discovery that would put him in police custody once Judy exposed the mention of his following action to the press.

"Well what a coinky-dink, I hit a jaguar that I know of who I thought would let _my_ plan get loose into the public."

"Not even after that commercial with you and the toys?"

"Not everybody watches television, you know."

"If you think that I-"

A door from the other side, pounding for a sign. Quackerjack and Doug turned to face th3e source of the voice coming from the other side.

"Yo, Doug! We got ya latte!"

"That'll be Woolter and Jesse," Doug explained. "Perhaps we can talk some more outside."

The two crooks walked away with their backs turned to the unsuspecting intruders, and Judy, whose eyes now laid on a red blinking light from the cab, now knew a way to escape…despite Nick's objections.

"What the hell are you doing? He's gonna see you!"

"I have an idea," she whispered back. "Darkwing can knock those two out cold while I get the train running."

Darkwing's left thumb went up, signaling her agreement.

Outside, Doug's right hand opened the door to reveal a pair of large rams: One by the name of Woolter had dark wool and curved horns with a white shirt reading "Double Ewe" and blood red straps, the other, supposedly named Jesse had a black eye patch on his right eye with a very dark green shirt stamped with the faded logo of a ram's skull and blue shorts. Doug greeted the two with an unsympathetic expression to Jesse, who was holding the cup of the requested latte in his left hand, though not so much as surprised when he and Wolter laid eyes on Quackerjack from behind Doug's left flank.

"It better have the extra foam this time."

Before any of them could reply, Doug felt a tinge of pain coming from his back and Quackerjack, about a half-second later, felt it as well and he found his beak lying in dirt. The contents of the cup spilled in a single line of brown ditchwater that splattered across the dusty areas of the floor, wasting a perfectly good fill of latte that dried up upon evaporating. All four looked up just in time to see the door being shut and Doug pushed himself onto his feet with his hands, in a magnetic fashion, gripping the door handle. To his misfortune, it was locked tight.

Darkwing clapped his hands twice, congratulating himself for finishing the deed as Judy rushed to the cab, both of her hands rotating the accelerator throttle around until it stop what was supposedly the train's top speed.

Goofy rubbed his left temple with his index finger, asking.

"So, uh, tell me again why we're hijackin' the train?"

"We need to get all of this evidence to the ZPD!"

"So what are you, a conductor now?" Nick asked with the back of his hands on his hips. "IT would take a miracle to get this rust bucket going."

Contrary to his words, the car started to inch, then creak as it jolted to a stop for a second before starting again at the initiative slow speed of two miles per hour.

 _Hallelujah._ Nick prayed as the speedometer went to four miles an hour.

Quackerjack and the rams, not suspecting the escaping car until it was too late, were watching Jesse talking on the phone in his left hand, informing their employer about the intruders.

"Hello, we've got a situation at the lab-"

Quackerjack was the first to hear the creak of subway car's wheels, then Doug became the second to see it in motion. Woolter was the third to see it moving away from them and when Jesse saw it, he shouted into the receiver.

"It just got worse."

Woolter went after it with Quackerjack following them from behind.

In the cab, Judy saw the journey before her, taking them into a narrow tunnel with red and white lights with thin pipes for steam ventilation adorning the walls to and from the outside world. Donald and Goofy kept the table at bay in case the night howlers fell from the roots. They even held their breaths to make sure they wouldn't go wild from the effects that had been inflicted upon the predators. Nick stood by her right side, taking in the events of the successful escape.

"Okay," he began. "Would it be premature for me to do a little victory toot-toot?"

Darkwing looked back at the rams and Quackerjack following them in hot pursuit, but he could only care less about any attempt of the four ruffians jumping aboard with the increasing speed of the vehicle. He just watched them through the window, smiling before the sound of a deep "WHOOOOO" brought him back to reality and total awareness. He looked back over his left shoulder for the source of the sound, followed by another "WHOOOOO" which he later deduced was the train's horn…blown by Nick pulling the cord down with his right hand.

"Well, I can cross that off of my personal list."

Then along came the vibration of a jolt. With wide eyes and uncomfortable expressions, Nick and Judy didn't count on Quackerjack bursting into the car by pushing down a loose hatch with his bare feet, both him and the hatch landing to floor with an insane smile, causing the cowardly Goofy and Donald to leap onto the night howler rows.

With a gold whistle that had a sound of death when Quackerjack blew it in his right hand, he chuckled twice in a sickly tone of insanity and his hat curled into devil's horns as his voice became twisted and satanic, shouting "It's PLAYTIME!" while gritting his teeth hard.

Before he could even move, Darkwing's right fist, followed a half-second later by his left, pounded his head. The vigilante expected him to fall from a lack of consciousness, but instead, the dazed jester turned clockwise to face him with a slack tongue and double vision as he wobbled to keep his balance in check.

"I'm getting real tired of your shit, Quackerjack."

Quackerjack's right index finger went up and wagged slowly, reprimanding him with all the strength that was there in his adrenaline.

"You do realize you just said the 's' word, right?"

Falling to the floor, Woolter took his place and he was much burlier than the thin-statured jester who threw Darkwing to the opposite end of the car with a fast right cross and before Donald and Goof could take him on, he turned counterclockwise to see Nick, who pushed the green door to the cab shut and the ram was too late to stop himself from running into the door and leaving a bumped dent once his horns made contact. Once his right hand had realized that the door was locked, Woolter butted his horns into the glass window which left a web design. Goofy and Donald, glancing at each other for an opportunity of usefulness, leapt from the tables onto Woolter's back. As the ram struggled to shake them off, finally defeated by the Sleepga spell, Nick turned to Judy with a voice of regret.

"Looks like I'll have to be taking that victory toot-toot back."

The stomping of hooves that followed after revealed to be Jesse, who in his own way of getting in after watching Woolter's botched attempts, used his horns to smash his way through the middle glass door, growling for the throttle that reminded Judy too much of Mr. Manchas when he went savage. His right hand was reaching for the controls that were closest to him, but it kept aiming for the throttle. Then Nick joined the struggle by running up to the wild (yet not infected with any night howler venom) ram by gripping his right forearm.

"Back off, you cocksucker!"

But seemed to have infuriated Jesse even more, for the struggle only lasted for three seconds before he successfully shook him off. Nick felt his back pinned to the door, where he turned clockwise and looked through the door to see Goofy, Donald and Darkwing, who saw the danger before them, and it was Darkwing who charged towards the ram with both fists curled after a speedy recovery that matched the velocity of his charge. Nick casually opened the door and Darkwing rushed through at a near-bullet speed, his fists coming into contact with Jesse's horns on each side. When they did, the blows had enough energy to push him out against the wind of the car's speed, which was too light to suck him back in. Instead, Jesse was now running for his life on the track while Darkwing was dangling from the edge of the window, the glass, thankfully, having been completely removed and destroyed.

Although Nick seemed concerned for the ram running for his life, Judy, reading his thoughts, instantly shouted.

"DO NOT STOP THIS CAR!"

And didn't, but Jesse still ran for two seconds until placed his back against the wall of pipes. What Judy heard next once they had passed was a scream of pain, implying to her that Jesse had most likely been killed, but before she could even think about mourning for him, the car had found itself in the open daylight. The glowing aura of the sun shining through the windows and the closed eyelids of Woolter and Quackerjack. It rumbled over the overhead track and under a signal tower…but ahead…

 _Of all the days for a goddam freight train to show up, it just HAD to be one of them!_ Judy thought angrily as she heard the diesel engine blasting it's horn in response for the car to stop. The sound of the horn dying away gave her the opportunity to speed the train up when she saw the switch, intent on using something to pull it to the other side without having to jump out and do it herself. She looked back through the open door to Darkwing, looming over Woolter's sleeping body, which seemed to give her an idea.

"Darkwing? You think you could throw him out the window? QUICKLY?!"

Darkwing faced Judy for a second, and without even questioning her, he lifted Woolter by the red straps and hoisted him through the middle window. Woolter flew on and his left horn hit the switch, pushing the lever over to the other side and when the unable-to-stop freight train was about ten feet away from colliding with the car, the track switched to a bend, a sharp, curved bend that would prove dangerous to turn at high speeds. When the car crossed the bend, it seemed to tilt to the left side at a seven-degree angle before it went back down again towards a fork of two tracks leading into two tunnels. The car took the tunnel on the right hand side and rushed into it with sparks from the friction of the wheels sprinkling the rails as it shook from going straight back up. In the distance was a large black "X" with two red lights above it; one on the bottom, the other on the top. Judy's subsequent choice of words seemed to fit with what was likely to be her final destination.

"Well, guys, this is our stop."

She quickly turned the throttle in reverse and three seconds later the mighty brakes screeched with even more sparks then before, giving the undercarriage a brilliant light of red turning into a bright yellow, it did not seem like the train would be stopping anytime soon…

And that was when a curious Morgana Macawber stepped in.

She had been following Darkwing in hopes of finding what he was up to. Her runaway thoughts the two previous nights had persuaded her inner voices to urge her to find him and with her granted supernatural ability of extra sensory perception, she was able to follow him to the prison, then to the subway station at a distance. She took a gamble by teleporting herself by smoke to the station where the car approaching, unable to stop in time from crashing into the buffer.

From the window, Darkwing could have sworn that he saw the figure of Moloculo Macawber for the second time before he felt the train lurch to a dead stop. Judy had not a clue as to the sudden halt, but she instantly assumed that it was the buffer. Goofy, Donald and Nick sighed deeply and so did she, relieved that all the evidence remained intact for Bogo and his men to find. She was relieved that practically collapsed to the floor on her backside with her ears up. The beats of her heart from the events up until now slowing down to a normal beat, imagining the alternate scenario of a collision with the freight train that would have ended in a spectacular explosion that would have only brought headlines and a long period of mourning for her family. However, she got up and soon realized that even with the help of her peers, and the fact that she could not risk leaving fingerprints, she could not take all of the evidence.

"Now to take one thing and present it to the police."

Nick looked at the black briefcase on the right table under the map of victims and opened it up, three pieces of a what looked like a dart gun remained inside: a nozzle, a handle and a magazine.

"Will this do?" he asked her.

"I guess it will. Will show him the rest after this."

Nick closed the briefcase and rushed out the same way he came in; through the rear entrance. Donald and Goofy rushed out as well, jumping onto the platform and ignoring the gothic duck hiding in the shadows.

"Well Morgana, I didn't think you'd want to hide your beauty under all that elderliness."

Surprisingly, "Moloculo" gave Darkwing an icy stare and slowly brought his hands up to his eyes, covering them in shame. In an instant, colorful sparkles surged from the fingernails to the hands and then the body began to morph. Darkwing could see what he done and in a minute the figure, covered in a plum light grew taller into the thin, shapely appearance of Morgana. When she uncovered her eyes, they held no form of surprise, nor shock, but a form of upset.

"So you figured it out…tell me how."

"I took a wild guess, but it was your perfume that gave yourself away. I smelled a similar sent when I encountered you as Moloculo the first time and all the other times I was near you. And it was you who tried to get rid of Taurus Bulba to gain a trustworthy reputation of the city that is better than mine."

Morgana, now realizing that she had been caught red-handed, smirked with eyes that were barely squinted and she began her spiel with an attitude of posh and arrogance.

"Of course, my father saw in a vision that predators and prey or either one of them were doomed to revert back to their primitive ways, so in order to prevent such a catastrophe, he concocted a plan to establish himself as the supreme ruler of Zootopia and her sister cities, casting a powerful spell that would pluck any primitive instinct right out of their minds, remaining civil beyond their biological instincts. But by the time his plan was completely conceived, he was too old and feeble to do it himself, so he entrusted me to finish the job via a disguise."

"Why the disguise?"

"For the oldest of all reasons…honor, tradition and deceit. To prove your love and my alliance to you, why not you kill that jester in the car over there so that he may no longer threaten anyone's life again and the city will look up to you as a hero for ridding it of its villainy by execution instead of an easily escapable prison."

Darkwing's eyes went wide. Murder was the least of his decisions.

"I can't do that! It would make me feel…empty. I'm sure there a lot of superheroes who can tell you that."

"You want this war on predators to end as much as I do, and my belief is that this city ought to be controlled by a figure with _real_ power, then they can settle their petty differences once and for all under my spell."

"By removing their freedom? Morgana, what will all of this solve?"

The words seemed to hit the sorceress with what was likely to be one of her negative spells gone awry, the type that made her feel emotions of positive love, passion, romance and happiness…but not the happiness she was accustomed to. Her thoughts on the words lasted only for four seconds, looking away from Darkwing as she did. Following those seconds, she slowly turned her head to him and said.

"If there is anyone who know the answer to that, Darkwing, it is you."

Confident at the thought that she had changed her mind, Darkwing smiled.

"Then I say, we bring this evidence to the police, then we can leave on a private cruise for Hawaii. Deal?"

He held out his right hand towards her left one, which seemed reluctant to comply

"Deal."

And before she could say anything else, Darkwing was racing his way up the stairs.

Judy and Nick had soon realized that they were in the Zootopia Museum of Natural History, with its Italian style balustrades gracing the two upper floors of the building. There stood a proud statue of a primitive empress of an African tribe, a round tusked elephant to be exact, with a sharp spear in her right hand and the crown of a pineapple's leaves, she represented her tribe of aboriginals with the true leadership of a strong ruler combined with her warriors of virtue.

But there was no time to admire the scenery, they had to get the evidence to police headquarters and even if they did, the museum was closed for renovation work. The light at the end of the great hall was just ahead past a yellow sunrise display of a wild panther looking down at his soon-to-be victims, a trio of pygmy rabbits holding spears, from a tree branch and just when they were a hundred feet away from the door.

"Judy!"

Sliding to a stop, Judy, Nick, Donald, and Goofy looked back. Sure enough, there was Mayor Bellwether and an escort of two male ram police officers

"Mayor Bellwether!"

They rushed back to the panther display.

"We found out the source of night howlers. It turns out a trio of rams are the ones infecting them with a dart gun."

She grabbed the briefcase from Nick's hands.

"This is only a part of the evidence that were able to carry. The rest is in a subway car down at the station."

Bellwether clasped her hands together, relieved.

"Oh, I am so proud of you Judy. Now if you let _me_ take the briefcase to the police, you can treat yourself to a long deserved rest."

Judy did so, moving the case to Bellwether…but when she saw the details of her new dress, pitch black with indigo bluebells all over it with glasses and a bracelet on her right wrist made to match, she took a light sigh and her face went from positive to worried. One rule of detective work is that you shouldn't trust anybody, and Bellwether offering to take over ownership of the briefcase was odd, even for a city official. Her suspicions grew worse, and with her ears drooping to the ground, she asked timidly.

"How did you find us?"

Bellwether did not even try to hide her true emotions, she took a great smile of darkness residing in her face.

"Jesse told me, with the help of your friend's instincts."

From behind the ram officer on her right came Sora, head down and depressed with his handcuffed hands in front of his abdomen, wearing a brace made from a seatbelt with a green light attached to a metal device covering his Adam's apple. Donald and Goofy's eyes widened at the curious sight. When Judy saw the brace, her proceeding words were at the speed of a sloth's speech.

"Sora…what…are…you…wearing…?"

Bellwether tittered four feet over to Sora, her right hand gesturing to the collar.

"Isn't it nice? I call it the 'tame collar'. Try to get any aggressive, and I can guarantee that it can shock you to…death."

Her mention of the word "death" sent a chill down Nick's spine, imagining himself in that positon. Having his neck locked in a collar with electrical features seemed painful and a purpose for driving a predator to suicide if he was unable to take it off. His mind went numb and morbid. It became an unspeakable atrocity for it to matter and seemed to conjure up a world where _every_ predator wore that very same collar Sora was wearing. Zootopia, as he had imagined it, would then become a dystopia, where _nobody_ could be _anything_.

"I think Nick and I will take this to Bogo."

As she said this, Judy backed away by six feet before turning counterclockwise to the entrance. Yet Donald and Goofy decided to stay behind, unwittingly staring at Sora and before either one of them could ask, the former human responded.

"I had no choice, Bellwether would have probably killed me if she didn't lead me to Judy. I'm such a shithead."

Bellwether looked to him with the smile of sadist hidden under her façade of a sweet little sheep.

"You're not, Sora," she soothed. "As my first predator that I can _actually trust_ , you have done me a great service."

Then from the roof came a figure of red and purple bouncing off the walls in springs, Quackerjack. His feet pushed themselves against a right wall and plummeted like lightning to the ground, right in front of Nick and Judy.

"Not so fast! That gun is my technology to begin with and I'd like it back!"

"Actually," Judy went on defensive feet. "Darts guns go back longer than you."

"Well, this was custom designed by me and thanks to that weasel, those rams had enough resources to rip me off."

He pushed himself forward, his hands reaching for the briefcase. Nick, Judy, Donald and Goofy rushed to the east wing of the museum towards a prehistorical section of tusks and displays a world long since vanished. Bellwether, now glaring with her hooves curled into fists shouted to her bodyguards.

"After them!"

So they did, and Sora, now melancholy than ever, stayed by her side.

Through a faded blue curtain, they ran past boxes of items yet to be unveiled for the new exhibition, jumped over a mammoth's tusk and hid behind the wall of a Mayan temple recreation, certain that they had lost the rams. They hardly dared to breathe, but at the same, they had wondered where Darkwing had gone to. Little did they know that he had taken a wrong turn into the west wing where vases depicting the heroes of ancient Greek and Roman culture lay on two different sides, Greek on the left and Roman on the right. He had figured that a quick look wouldn't hurt during his search for the remaining party. But one wing away from the entrance, the threat was closing in.

"Come on out, Judy…"

The sing song voice, accompanied by the silhouettes of Mayor Bellwether and Sora, transfigured into the monster that she really was. It was also then that Judy thought of a distraction: she could try to reason with Bellwether and let Sora go while Nick got away with the briefcase back to headquarters with Donald and Goofy's help (that is if the two took care of the guards first).

"Take the case to Bogo, I'll deal with her."

"You said we were going to do this together, so we'll both do it."

"That was almost three days ago!"

"So what?" Donald interjected. "We're not going to leave Sora with her anyway."

Speaking of Sora, he was following Bellwether at his own pace, regretting having spoken to her alone about the night howlers. He could have avoided the unneeded opportunity of being forced to wear a collar that would most likely electrocute him to death if he was too aggressive, but of course, he didn't.

"Judy?!"

The guards by now were pushing the curtains back with a flashlight in one hand, their silhouetted figures providing a menacing light to their position and deportment. Judy looked back and Nick and tried to reason with him again.

"Just go!"

Nick took the briefcase without question and slid away from sight. Goofy and Donald placed their backs against the wall, ready to ambush the guards. With a strong posture, Judy stepped in front of Bellwether, slowly closing in on her in hopes of offering a peaceful approach. In spite of the looming threat, she had her feet firm to the ground and her fists ready for a fight…all the while asking.

"Why are you doing this?"

Bellwether kept her speed, content that Judy was not going to escape her without a fight.

"I know how it feels to be underestimated, underappreciated, underrated…and it MAKES ME SICK!"

Her exclamation echoed into the west wing where Darkwing could now see the entrance…along with Quackerjack stomping his way towards the curtain. The sound of Bellwether's voice was now back to normal volume, her left hand admiring the large carving of a wolf's head from an Egyptian pyramid.

"Predators. They think they're so strong and loud, but _prey_ outnumbers them by ten to one!"

Judy took one cautious step with her right foot and Bellwether did the same. The ram guards readied their muscles as did Donald and Goofy with their weapons…and Sora could not even see even a glimpse of their own shadows with his eyesight down to the floor. The bitchy sheep resumed her spiel.

"Think of it. Ninety percent of the population united against a common enemy will be unstoppable. Either that or we can make peace as always by implanting them with these collars so that if they even _try_ to become aggressive, they'll be killed instantly."

Cringing at her tone of voice, Judy took the step back and darted her eyes right to Goofy and Donald, inching their way to the end of the wall.

"And I thought you were sweet…but not as sweet as my friends! Now!"

Right on cue, Goofy took two steps out of the wall and his right hand threw the shield Frisbee-style to the guard on the left which took him by surprise. He barely had time to duck when the shield crashed into his forehead, falling onto his back. Donald's left hand holding the staff threw a freeze charm at the guard on the left, striking his feet and crawling up to his head, literally freezing him solid in ice. Bellwether who had seen the shield, ran after Judy meeting up with Nick, who had inched his way to the alcove on the other side. While Goofy and Donald searched for a key on one of the officer to get Sora out of the cuffs, Nick and Judy were ducking under a yellow barrier and out in the hall for the second time where they saw Darkwing running towards them.

But unfortunately for all three of them, Quackerjack had bypassed Bellwether on his way into the area, and seeing Nick with the briefcase, lunged forward.

"That's mine! That's mine!" he shouted.

His arms encircled the fox and the rabbit before Darkwing could stop him, Nick's right arm threw the briefcase over to the hero and Quackerjack's head had unwittingly pushed the duo into the open circle that lay without a guardrail in the center of the entrance. The briefcase landed in Darkwing's arms, holding it high above his head and shouting.

"I got it!"

However, it was Quackerjack who gripped the briefcase by the handles while Darkwing did his best to hold it back.

"No, I've got it!"

Now the briefcase had become a subject for a tug of war.

Inside the circle was an artificial earth of prehistoric nature, with tan and light brown rocks surrounded by synthetic star-shaped leaves gone extinct and the wall was a panorama of a green forest landscape that neither of them could hide into. There was also a log bridge, statues of a deer and her fawn on opposite ends of a firm painted river and two small floodlights providing an orange-yellow light to the scenery on the opposing sides of the bird's eye view.

Nick and Judy felt as if they were back in time to a thousand years ago when the only inhabitants of North Americlaw were Indians (or natives as some preferred to call them by), which was their initial thought until they heard the sounds of struggling that were stopped by Bellwether's voice.

"I'll be taking that, thank you."

Successfully having broken up the fight, Bellwether left Darkwing and Quackerjack to their own devices...in the form of horseplay no doubt. Then she crept her way over to where Nick and Judy were trapped.

"You should have just stayed on the carrot farm, bitch, because I really liked you until you discovered my plot."

Judy was not about to let Mayor Bellwether break her bones with her words.

"And what the hell are you going to do about it?!" she shouted from the ten-foot-high pit. "KILL ME?!"

"I would," the snitty sheep chuckled. "Or I could do this!"

She whipped out the dart gun from the briefcase, and checked to make sure that a pellet was already loaded into the magazine. Taking it in her right hand, Bellwether was as fast as a sharpshooter and Nick did not realize a large drop of liquid on his right cheek until it was too late. Judy rushed over to him and feared the worst.

"Nick!"

Then Bellwether took her cell-phone in her left hand, acting rather poorly in a reminiscence of her perception of a cheesy B-movie.

"Police! THERE IS A SAVAGE FOX IN THE NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM! OFFICER HOPPS IS DOWN! Please, _please_ hurry!"

Then Nick started convulsing violently.

"Nick, don't do this. Fight it!"

But Nick's ears in a poetic sense went deaf, and Bellwether would only taunt her in a voice of sick sweetness.

"He can't help it! After all, predators are biologically predisposed to be…savage."

The word "savage" was just the trump card Bellwether needed to get Nick on all fours. Judy backed away, wishing for Sora or Darkwing to help her out, but by now he was too immersed in his battle with Quackerjack, throwing a series of one melee attack after the next. She wasn't where Sora was now other than the fact that he was still handcuffed. Before she could think about where Donald and Goofy still were, Nick was soon growling in her face, and, fearing that he had rabies, Judy ran across the solid river and used her only weapon of defense: the fawn display.

She hugged it tightly and turned clockwise to Nick, letting it go with all her might. The spine of the display struck Nick's abdomen and he found his head stuck between the fore and the hind legs, with his hands sticking out before the forelegs. Judy ran into the artificial high grass where she could hear Bellwether taunting her for the second time.

"Imagine the headlines: 'Hero Cop killed by Savage Fox'!"

From the high grass, Judy could see Nick trying to free himself…by ripping out the white colored stuffing, a less gory representation of the fawn's intestines, with his teeth. Judy could only imagine herself in that position as the memories of her childhood pageant flowed through her mind, but this was reality, history repeating itself even. Then with the rear section of the fawn having taken too much damage, Nick whipped it around with the white blood oozing out of the baby's stomach, Nick's eyes were locked onto Judy. But the rabbit, remembering the carrot pen still in her belt, had her own trump card to pull by asking Bellwether…

"Is this going to be it? Prey fears predator and you stay in power?"

"Correct," the sheep replied diabolically.

Judy had to push Bellwether even more to extract the truth within the pen's hearing range.

"It won't work! Your plan is a poorly crafted piece of shit!"

Then the sheep glowered with angry green eyes of not jealously, but pure evil itself.

"Don't you cuss in front of me, bitch!" Bellwether was now being hypocritical with her choice of words. "Fear always works, and if my collars are as poor as you think they are, I'll throw every damn predator in Zootopia into death camps just to keep it that way."

Judy now knew she had one last act to pull in the balance of life and death as she Nick growling at her through the long blades of grass that obscured the rest of his body. She held out her right hand and Nick slowly began to hesitate, decreasing his growling by a huff.

"Nick…"

And when the moment came with her fingers making contact with his fur, there was a surge of…electricity. But this wasn't the same type of electricity from friction or even from Bellwether's collars (since Nick obviously was not wearing one), it was an electricity that surged from the heart, a heart of light to be exact. The light that could purify a violent creature into an animal of peace through the power of love and friendship. Nick's breathing stopped entirely and his eyes went half-mast, then closed entirely, relaxing his body into submission. Judy could almost see a smile forming on his lips, taking in the warmth of the "magic touch" from her paw that seemed to quell his negative emotions into something suitable soft and fluffy.

This moment of powerful emotions almost seemed to have an effect on Bellwether as well, albeit a negative one. Her smile slowly faded into a frown of dread, predicting her plan falling apart right before her very eyes. But her curious vision remained on the tender moment between Nick and Judy, her undaunting words proceeding with another threat.

"I framed Lionheart and I can frame you too! It's my word against yours."

But then, there came another voice from her far right flank: Sora.

"Not if I can help it. _Sleepga_!"

He pointed the Kingdom Key Chain forwards and a powder of white magic shot forwards like a cannonball from the teeth. Perfectly camouflaged against her fur, Bellwether did not see the powder, nor did her head turn in response to Sora's voice until it was too late. The powder collided with the large poof of hair above her forehead and before she could take in every ounce of realization that was happening, her head limped to her right shoulder and the rest of her body collapsed to the floor in a heap. Surprisingly, her glasses did not fall off and the gun fell just one inch away from falling into the artificial landscape.

"Let's hope she counts herself into a deep sleep," Sora chuckled to Goofy and Donald.

The two covered their mouths, creating a stifling laugh. Over by the pit, Darkwing and Quackerjack, beaten, bruised and with some small damage done to their outfits had reached an impasse…or a double victory. Darkwing lay on his back, while Quackerjack had his beak on the floor, dazed and with his eyes at half-mast.

"For once, I'm stuck without a victory punchline," he uttered to no one in particular.

He looked up at the sight of a duck in red, glowering down at him with an unimpressed face.

The mutter of "Hello babe," was all he said before he found himself suspended from the floor by his shirt.

Sora, Donald and Goofy could wait for them, they were more concerned about Nick and Judy as they rushed to the pit.

"Are you hurt, Judy?" Sora asked.

With a smile of serenity, Judy could care less about Nick's attempt at trying to kill her. She looked up at Sora, then back to Nick who was resting in peace by her right hip. She could imagine doing the same to Gideon Grey when he clawed her right cheek back in elementary school, saving her from a loss of blood and the overreactions of her parents that was pushed into the back of her memories. Maybe what predators needed was a little love, and people like Dawn Bellwether couldn't understand it, they could either do the same or hold back their negative emotions into the darkness of their hearts and let the light reach into their inner souls, where they could find sympathy with another kindred spirit.

"I'm fine!" she called back in a voice she hoped that Nick would not wake up from. "I also have this as evidence."

She held up the carrot pen in her right hand and her index finger pressed the play button where Bellwether's voice echoed from the speaker.

" _Fear always works, and if my collars are as poor as you think they are, I'll throw every damn predator in Zootopia into death camps just to keep it that way._ "

The recording ended with the sudden arrival of the Chief Bogo and his men, who had responded to Bellwether's call and sneaked in, preparing to pounce on the savage fox until the echo of Bellwether's discriminating words told otherwise. Bonkers was the first to approach the sleeping sheep and his right foot swung at her nappy hairdo, enraged by her betrayal. The others shared his disappointment as well, looking down at the sheep who had nearly caused a holocaust if she remained in office.

"How long have you been standing there?" Sora asked Bogo.

"Long enough for her to confess, thanks to Officer Hopps."

Then Darkwing pushed through the cordon, shouting and pointing his right index finger towards Morgana holding Quackerjack by the neck in her left arm.

"He's the one you want!"

But Morgana kept her grip on Quackerjack with her left arm being as strong as an iron barrier and moved back by a step.

"No, I'll take care of him personally. One way or another, this whole anti-predator agenda ends with the dawning of a new era in which mortals and immortals join as one."

As the police exchanged glances to hide their true judgement of her as a crazy witch with no power at her command, Morgana gave Darkwing a morose face that signaled the end of a very brief chapter in her life.

"Goodbye, my love."

With a wave of her free right hand, grey smoke began to stem from her dress, covering her abdomen and Quackerjack's feet until her hair and his silver bells were visible. Darkwing could only watch the smoke from Morgana's feet disappear and within three seconds, to the amazement of Sora and the officers, she was gone. Disappointed, Darkwing did not dare to even call out her name in an exercise of futility, he turned back at the sound of a moan and it came from the throat of a poor, misunderstood sheep named Dawn Bellwether.


	16. Hopps and Wilde, Partners in Law

It took almost a week to reclaim the missing mammals from the asylum. The Timberwolf crew had to co-operate with a SWAT team to escort the still-savage mammals into the vans, but in the end the job was done. The police also found Judy's meter maid cart, too, right there by the entrance of the Tundratown Limo Service parking lot where she had left it. Funny thing, it didn't even have a speck of snow on it, just a fogged window with some frost creeping around the fenders.

Somewhere along the time all the captured mammals were in hospice, Darkwing was moping in front of his computer, hatless and maskless with Gosalyn stroking his right forearm while on that side with Launchpad on his left, leaning over him to express his sympathy.

"Gone…gone for good, mostly likely."

Gosalyn then started to rub the forearm, her right index finger drawing an invisible line over Darkwing's middle vein.

"She probably didn't want to see you again after what she was planning to do to Zootopia. I mean her intentions seemed good and all, but controlling the citizens with magic is almost the same as mind-control. She had to be stopped, even if her father did predict the future, which was only half correct, to be honest."

Launchpad leaned himself down by three inches.

"Gotta agree with you, Gosalyn. Some people actually overthink their goals, leading them to believe that what they are doing is for the good of animal kind and not the bad. Morgana likely had so much magic that she let it all go to her head, ya know? So she…got too powerful."

Darkwing slanted his eyes left at Launchpad. It was clear that the pilot's words were not reaching into his soul and it was something that he had to find for himself.

"I think it would be better if I tried to find answer on my own. Maybe my willpower can give me a hint as to where Morgana can be."

Launchpad walked away from the computer, followed a quarter of three seconds later by Gosalyn into the elevator. As she got in, she turned back to her adoptive father and said.

"If you ever need us, we'll always be here for you, Dad."

Not bothering to look back, Darkwing closed his eyelids in synchronization with the elevator doors. A silent minute passed, the breeze of the wind blowing through the tower did not seem to disturb the vigilante out of his thoughts and he searched through the caverns of his mind to find where Morgana have gone to. Back home to Transylvania perhaps?

A faint flutter of paper came into his right ear. Darkwing opened his eyes all the way and got up from the left hand side of the chair. On light feet he found the source of the paper: a white envelope sitting by the middle pilaster of the bridge with only his first name written on it in cursive. His right hand opened the envelope seal to revealed a neatly folded letter that was short, but meaningful as he read it.

" _My dearest Darkwing,_

 _By the time you read this, I will be on that cruise you mentioned back to Transylvania. I have left Quackerjack in the sewers like the rat he really is on the inside. Now he can just stay there and suffer for all the crimes he caused if he doesn't try to find a way out. If you want to turn him into the police, that's acceptable, but if he escapes from prison like he has possibly done many times before, do not come crying to me._

 _As for us, I need some more time to think it over. If my father and the rest of my family think you will make a fine husband one day, I will be living in your tower quicker before you can say 'I do'._

 _Forever yours,_

 _Morgana Macawber_ "

And Darkwing knew that if she returned, they could find a way to start their relationship all over again.

When Mrs. Otterton found out about her husband's current condition, she decided to hide the news from her two sons for understandable reasons, simply telling them that he had caught a cold and she wasn't planning on taking Corey and Arnie to visit their father until after he had been cured with a newly discovered antidote, courtesy of Dr. Honey Badger. When he was cured the following week at the Samarian Hospital, she rushed right over, only to find out that he was asleep and spent much of her time in his room reading _Marriage Material_ by Alicia Airey. Perhaps the meaning of the title would help find the answer to some of their marriage problems. But they were already a happy couple with problems that were far in the back of their heads, and up until the kidnapping, the only thing she had to worry about was his life.

A groggy Emmitt stirred in his sleep and a moan brought his wife's attention. She darted her eyes to him at first, then a wave of panic settled into her heart, bringing her legs up to speed and at long last, she could feel the warmth of his civilized heart, bearing the joy of a reunion that was, in her opinion, long overdue.

At the same time, Judy was entering the next room, tending to Nick. Sora was relieved of the collar as soon as the police forced Bellwether (once the sleeping spell had been lifted) to remove it personally in her last act as mayor of a city that would have been killed (spiritually) in a never-ending story of rioting and hatred between predators and prey. He stood by the door with Goofy and Donald, watching Nick open his civil eyes for the first time in a week.

The first thing his normal eyes ever saw was Judy, smiling in happiness, not a feeling of over excitement, and overdose of exuberance or even a hard laugh with screams of "YOU'RE BACK!", just a smile with her right hand stroking his forehead, letting her body temperature into his and finalizing the civil touches to his brain in a full restoration of his normal old self.

"Hello…Carrots."

His weak smile, match with his voice was all he could say for the time being. Judy did not bother to question what she quickly realized was his pet name for her, she just extended her smile by two inches and replied with a heartwarming "Hello…Slick."

After five silent seconds, Nick had a second thought about the name.

"Too stereotypical?"

Judy shook her head no.

"No, I like it. I actually planted carrots back home with the rest of my family."

Turning her eyes back over to the left, she asked another topic.

"Did you remember anything while you were… _savage_?"

Nick frowned, the type of frown that made Judy suspect that he was complicating a review of his life in general, rethinking his past sins. Finally, he spoke.

"All I can remember is that I was in a forest, you were there, all I could see was red and when your hand touch me I started to feel sleepy."

"That was a museum exhibit."

"It was?"

He threw his head back and laughed.

"Do you remember anything else?"

"Nothing after that, I'm afraid. Except for maybe them putting a pin in my neck."

"You mean a syringe? That was for the cure."

"It was?"

Nick's stupid smile corresponding to his question brought another laugh that was subsequently overlapped by the laughter of Emmitt Otterton's boys.

The next day, Judy finally brought Nick to where she lived with the three travelers in tow. He had only seen the exterior of the Grand Pangolin Arms after escorting her home from the skirmish with Lionheart, so she took her time to introduce Nick to her room.

"Sometimes, I like to think of it as a safe house."

Surprisingly, the Onyx-Antlerson brothers were away for the day to pick up some library movies, giving Judy the peace and quiet she needed to show Nick the nitty gritty details of her room, yet when her right hand opened the door to let him in, she panicked at the familiar sound of…

"Judy! Oh thank goodness!"

It was her mother, father and thirty of her siblings all expecting her.

"MOM?!"

Bonnie took five steps forward towards her daughter.

"You were supposed to call us every day and we got worried! I mean in the city, there's all kinds of…"

Her tone slowed when she saw Nick and Sora enter through the doorway.

"Unsavory animals."

She gritted her teeth in fear, the type of fear that Bellwether would have enjoyed and posted on her Facebook page. Then along came Stu carrying a cardboard box of seven Happy Meals and a plastic cup of orange juice for the family to share.

"Who wants some…"

He stopped at the sight of Nick, Sora, Goofy and Donald.

"Hello," the black panther offered his right hand, but Stu scooted past him from behind and into the room, joining his first-born daughter.

"Dad, they're with me," Judy confessed.

"You bought a fox and a panther to your home? The duck and dog look fine to me, but a panther and a FOX?!"

Judy hung her right arm over Nick's left.

"He's more than a fox, he's my partner."

"Actually, we were just leaving."

Nick turned counterclockwise on his heels and headed for the hall. Sora went back by one foot and before he could turn away, Judy's right hand reached out to stop them.

"Nick, Sora wait!"

Goofy and Donald stepped in front of them, ensuring they would stay longer of Judy's parents liked it or not. Thankfully, Judy's right hand grabbed Nick's right elbow, pulling him back.

"Their names are Nick, Sora, Donald and Goofy and they just helped me solve a big case involving the mayor."

Judy would go into further detail about Bellwether later if she had the time, but right now she was putting her argument to the less extreme.

"If anyone is uncomfortable being in the same room with them, there's the door," she finished.

Bonnie and Stu exchanged glances of doubt. Although they were familiar with Gideon Gray's redemption as a fox who ran a pie shop, they had their suspicions about other foxes including those who lived in the city. Their thoughts were interrupted by Thomas, the family nerd and round rimmed glasses were proof of that.

"If you had worked on such a big case, why do have a meter maid uniform?"

Sure enough, he was sticking his nose where it did not belong: Judy's closet. She watched, cringing away as he held the vest in his left hand, while the cap was in his left. It was later recorded as the most embarrassing day of her life, but her parents seemed to save the day with her mother arguing.

"She's not a meter maid, Thomas! She's a real cop, they gave her fancy car and everything! Right, bon-bon?"

She decided to confess the truth.

"Technically," Judy said rubbing her hands together. "I'm not a real cop…or at least before I completed the case."

Stu was confused, but Bonnie was upset by her words, even more so than the fact that she hid the truth from her.

"Judy, you lied to me?"

"Well, I am a real cop now, so all's well that ends well, right?"

Stu took charge of the conversation.

"I was worried about you coming here in the first place and now you lied to your own mother among other things?"

His eyes darted left back to Sora and Nick.

"Judy, this is not who you are," Stu resumed in his own attempt at a strict tone. "You've…changed."

Sora placed his paws on his hips, displeased by his words.

"Isn't that what growing up is all about?"

Nick added his words with a more detailed explanation as he gestured with his hands.

"So she lied about being a meter maid and who wouldn't? Here's the thing, when I first saw Officer 'Toot-Toot' here, I thought she was going to get stepped on. But she proved otherwise. It came to me that bunnies from the burrows do not get stepped on, they step up. So Mr. Hopps, if you please, we just solved the case of the century and you may want to consider giving her another chance at life on her own as a true officer of the law, because I'm thinking about joining the police force."

Judy froze at the sound of this, but she didn't sound too surprised when she asked.

"You are?"

"Yeah, I figured the cops would be kind enough to let a fox into the police force after me helping you solve the case."

"Despite you going savage?" Goofy asked suspiciously.

"Blame it on Bellwether, long ears. She's likely to get the chair."

Or less discreetly known as the electric chair. But Nick carefully observed the faces of Mr and Mrs. Hopps, who took his words with positive thinking and exchanged glances for the second time.

"Well," Stu began. "I guess after what became of Gideon Grey, running his own shop and all, I guess we could let Nick here have a chance."

Bonnie smiled, inching her head closer to Stu's eyes.

"I couldn't agree more."

"There you go!" Nick cheered, aiming his arms for the door. "Now why don't you go on home and maybe Judy and I can have dinner later on."

"A dinner date?" Stu asked halfway through the doorway. "Well, you two be careful out there."

"We will," the remaining five said in unison.

Goofy, Donald and Sora looked at each other, professing confusion. They didn't even know if Judy was planning on inviting them to dinner. Thankfully at the last minute, she did.

When Baloo and Kit got back to Rebecca's home in Cape Suzette, Louie was just about leaving, suitcase in right hand, when he turned thirty degrees to the right to find the two standing there with no ulterior motives in their innocent smiles. He didn't even jump back in surprise, he just widened his eyes and cleared his throat.

"Baloo, um—may I at least say that I was sorry for all those things I said back there?"

Baloo crossed his arms, but his expression remained content.

"You mean four days ago."

"Give or take. You were right about the fact that I was drunk out of my mind."

"Yeah next time, go easy on the margarita," Kit reminded him.

"I'll remember that," the orangutan replied in a clear voice. "Hope we can make things up back at my place."

"Perhaps we can," Baloo said with a rekindled smile.

He went into the house, finding Rebecca, Wildcat and Molly sitting down to a tomato salad for lunch. When her eyes looked up at Baloo at the moment her leafy fork was five inches from entering her mouth, she placed it down and left her seat, standing before him with her hands on her hips.

"Back so soon? I would have thought you and Kit were off celebrating."

Baloo, knowing that she was referring to the fall of Dawn Bellwether, blushed incredulously, but admitted the truth a small smile.

"Did you see me on the news?"

"Just a teensy bit of you on-camera. You should hear what Mayor Lionheart had to say about it."

She turned the remote on to reveal a recording of the news report with Mayor Lionheart, now wearing a blue prison uniform confessing to a porcupine in an interrogation room.

"Did I falsely imprison those animals? Well, yes, yes I did. It was a classic 'doing the wrong thing for the right reason' kind of a deal."

Baloo could agree with himself that Lionheart was absolutely innocent of any complicity in the crime, if not by a quarter of guilt. One thing for sure though, he was happy to be back with his "family".

Another week passed, Nick's time at the Zootopia Police Academy fared better than Judy's. Sora, Donald and Goofy went back to their original intention of staying at Uncle Scrooge's mansion in Duckburg for another week, telling him, Daisy, Huey, Dewy and Louie about their adventure from meeting Judy to putting Bellwether to sleep. In other subjects that they discussed about, Scrooge's younger brother Gideon, editor-in-chief of the _County Conscience_ , had the entire front page given over to the Bellwether case for the next three days with quite a bit about her atrocious actions still being explored on TV. The mayor's office, of course, was closed until Lionheart or Bellwether could be cleared of their criminal actions and it remained empty until a new election campaign could be settled. A matter of educated guesses revolving around Bellwether's inner psyche that her to become a monster of prejudice was soon examined by a psychiatrist, his report ending with the ironic words: "With her physical appearance, she wouldn't even harm a fly."

The beginning of the following week saw another graduation ceremony for Nick and his classmates. Compared to Judy's, it was one where she could take charge of the speech that would introduce a new roster of ZPD officers to enter the real world of serving and protecting their city. For the occasion, Nick decided to wear shades and a Snarlbucks coffee cup seen in his right hand in case of thirst. The graduation ceremony felt the same as before: a contingent of police officers in front of four rows on a grassy field. She stood in front of the podium, and explained her expectations and her pitfalls and her discoveries in great detail.

"When I was a kid, I thought Zootopia was this perfect place, where everyone got along and anyone could be anything. But it turns out that real life is a little more complicated than a slogan on a bumper sticker. Real life is messy. We all have limitations, we all make mistakes, which means—we all have a lot in common. And the more we try to understand one another, the more exceptional each of us will be. But we have to try. So no matter what type of animal you are; from the biggest elephant, to our first fox, I implore you to—try. Try to make the world a better place. Look inside yourself and recognize that change starts with you. It starts with me. It starts with all of us."

Her speech ended with Nick lifting the shades with his left hand, his right eye giving her a wink. Then he removed them, still smiling at her with a face of genuine happiness. Sora, Donald and Goofy tried hard to contain their enthusiasm and the tears of Judy's beautiful speech.

From a small oak carved box that she held was the name "Nicholas P. Wilde" engraved in gold underneath a police badge. Judy's right hand summoned Nick to the stage and with slow steps and a trusting smile from the two of them, she placed it on the right side of his chest, even neater that what Bellwether did about a week ago.

"You are now an official member of the Zootopia Police Department," she spoke in best militaristic voice, followed by a right handed salute from the two of them. The ceremony eventually ended with a thunderous applause and a tossing of hats into the air. Since his attempt at getting into the Junior Ranger Scouts, it was indefinitely the best day of Nick Wilde's life.

Soon the two would be driving in a large police car with some zebra stripe like designs, chasing cars going against the speed limit and fighting against the opposing forces of other criminal lords save for a reformed Mr. Big, who was planning on naming his future granddaughter after Judy. As for Sora, Donald and Goofy, they knew that their time had come to an end, having their own vehicle, the Gummi Ship, to use in a triumphant farewell to their two new friends. It was at the end of the week when Gazelle held a large, colorful concert that Judy and Nick attended, skywriting a white heart and a "Z" in the middle that reminded all predators and prey, including Gazelle herself, of the city they had loved so much, that they never wanted things to go wrong ever again…that, as Stu Hopps would have put it, was indeed the beauty of complacency.

And so it was there they left them and always they would find them again, for the fox and the bunny would always be together, in this remarkable city of dreams called…Zootopia.


End file.
